TEAMSTERS IN THE NEWS: BOSTON GLOBE
TEAMSTERS IN THE NEWS: BOSTON GLOBE
At Massachusetts 911 call centers, severe staffing issues and burnout
Teamsters Local 25 Cambridge 911 Steward Mary Wright is featured in a Boston Globe story about the severe staffing shortage at 911 call centers in Cambridge, Boston, and across the state. In fact, she had to cancel the original interview because of a staffing shortage that left her working 14 hours.
“Going to work, you never feel like you’re going to go home at the end of your scheduled shift… It’s exhausting. Mentally, physically — it’s exhausting,” Wright said.
“Dispatcher and call-taker staffing levels plunged during the pandemic and have been slow to rebound, leading to a vicious cycle, workers say, of overwork and burnout for a key part of the public safety apparatus in Cambridge, Boston, and many of the 200-plus call centers in the state.”
“There’s an oft-cited statistic from two industry surveys that in recent years, particularly post-pandemic, dispatchers have had an annual attrition rate around 30 percent, and, because of that, staffing levels are down by a similar percentage.”