THE MBTA’S CURRENT CLEANING CONTRACT with two private vendors illustrates how the administrations of Gov. Charlie Baker and former governor Deval Patrick are both alike and different when it comes to managing the transit agency.

The contract shows both administrations favored a new approach to privatizing work at the T, but Patrick backed off when employees of the private vendors complained the terms of the contract would lead to layoffs. Baker, at least for now, is forging ahead.

The cleaning contract was signed with SJ Services and ABM in June 2013, when Patrick was governor. It required the companies to meet certain performance standards in cleaning T stations rather than having a set number of workers on duty at any given time. The $61.8 million, five-year contract maintained existing staffing levels in the first year, but allowed the companies to pare back workers in the second and third years. The final two years of the contract were option years.

Richard Davey, the state transportation secretary at the time, acknowledged some workers would probably be laid off in the second year of the contract but said the change in approach was necessary. In the minutes of the June 19, 2013, MassDOT board meeting, Davey said he was voting for the contracts because “we have asked our customers to bear service cuts and fare increases and we have to also ask that of our contractors.”

The one-year hiatus in staff reductions allowed 32BJ SEIU District 615, the union representing the cleaning workers, to launch a campaign protesting the contracts. Union officials lobbied then-MBTA General Manager Beverly Scott, Davey, and Patrick. They warned of dirty T stations and said the remaining workers would face an unsustainable workload.

“In an environment in which workers are routinely called upon to clean not only soil and trash, but urine, vomit, and feces, this has significant quality and public health ramifications,” said an SEIU analysis at the time. “This outcome is clearly inconsistent with the MBTA’s stated goal of providing exceptional cleaning standards at all times.”

As the start of the contract’s second year approached and the contractors prepared to lay off some 90 workers, the Patrick administration blinked in the face of union pressure. Given that Davey was a vocal supporter of the new contract, the decision was probably made by Patrick himself. Davey said in an email he “wasn’t involved in it” and didn’t remember the details. Scott, the T general manager, declined comment.

Joe Pesaturo, the T spokesman, explained the agency’s shift in August 2014 in a way that made it seem temporary. “The MBTA has asked its cleaning contractors to delay the planned changes to staffing levels while we continue to hold discussions with SEIU,” he said. “The MBTA remains determined to implement a plan under which cleaning services are provided in the most cost-effective manner possible.”

What T officials didn’t publicize was that to maintain existing staffing levels they funneled more money to the contractors beyond what was authorized in the original contract. They also used so-called cash vouchers to make the payments. The total amount of extra payments is in dispute, but the T’s current general counsel said in a September 27 letter to the SEIU that the extra payments totaled $8.3 million, or just over $4 million a year.

After Baker took office in January 2015, SEIU officials began talking with officials in the administration about what would happen with the T cleaning contract at the end of the contract’s third year on September 1, 2016. They met with Baker himself in December 2015, and with then-T General Manager Frank DePaola and T Chief Administrator Brian Shortsleeve in February 2016.

Roxanna Rivera, an SEIU vice president, said those meetings were productive. She said Baker was serving in the Weld administration when the cleaning contracts were first privatized and told union officials he wanted them to work. She said DePaola indicated the contracts would probably be rebid at the end of the three years and the union would be able to provide input into the process.

In July, however, Rivera said she began hearing from the two cleaning contractors that the Baker administration was thinking about extending the existing contracts into the option years under the original performance-based terms.  Her fears were confirmed at an August 11 meeting with Shortsleeve, who had added the title of acting general manager after DePaola’s retirement. “At that point, it was come hell or high water we’re doing this,” she said of Shortsleeve’s view.

Union officials quickly tried to shift gears, relaunching the campaign that had proven successful in 2014. They held rallies, protested at the State House, and issued fliers containing language strikingly similar to what was released during the earlier campaign. “MBTA janitors are routinely called upon to clean not only dirt and trash, but urine, vomit, and feces; fewer janitors doing the job will have significant quality and public health ramifications,” one flier said.

The MBTA’s Fiscal Management and Control Board issued a privatization report to the Legislature that said the cleaning contract was “an example of what can happen when the MBTA does not correctly administer performance-based contracting.” The report said the T expects to save $8.1 million over the next two years “while holding the cleaning vendors to the current high standards so that riders will continue to be provided with a clean and comfortable transit system.”

The new, old contract is now a month old and MBTA officials say station cleanliness has not suffered.  “We haven’t experienced major issues, no more than we ever did,” said Shortsleeve at a press availability on Wednesday. He added that the T is saving $11,000 per day with the contract now.

Shortsleeve said he did not know how many workers had been laid off by the cleaning companies, but noted that MBTA general counsel John Englander has asked the firms about their employment practices in the wake of allegations by some workers that their hours had been cut by an hour so they wouldn’t qualify for health and other benefits.

Rivera said some of her union members have been laid off and others have seen their hours cut. She said the contractors have also brought in temporary workers to fill the void.

“It’s the wild, wild West,” she said. “This was just a cut-throat measure with no explanation. This is why our union was born in this industry.”