Career Employment on Florida's Toll Roads

I have worked as a toll collector on the Florida Toll Road for 15 years.The state outsourced all of us in 1996 to a company named Barton Security. Later, they were bought out by Allied Security and called Allied/Barton. The only thing that changed was that the benefits that employees received got less and we had to contribute more.In 2007 that contract was up for re-bid and the successful bidder this time was a company named Faneuil Group. After a few questionable situations and delays of the contract being awarded to Faneuil, the toll part of Faneuil Group was bought out by a person named Ronald Perleman (the 26th richest man in the United States) which would make a person wonder just how lucrative of a contract this is when a man of his means would go to such an extent to purchase the toll part of Faneuil Group and name part of it Faneuil, Inc.The one thing that happened immediately was hiring of a total new management team (who seem to manage mostly autocratically) because the treatment of collectors and supervisors got worse again. The benefits also got much worse. The health insurance plan (which is very important to employees today) is intirely laughable. It covers approximately 2 days in the hospital annually or $10,000.00 total annually.Money for Salaries and benefits that toll collectors once had is now alloted to Faneuil, Inc. for creating the new company and executives pay. The really bad part of all of this is that the management in the Tolls Operation has sit back and turn their heads and allowed all of this to happen. Otherwords, Toll Operations executives has thrown all toll collectors "under the bus" and have sit back and watched it happen and without any personal investigation on their part. They just take Faneuil's word for what is happening.It's kind of like putting the Fox in charge of the hen house and when the chickens start disappearing, you go and ask Mr. Fox what has happened to my chickens - and Mr. Fox replies with "they probably are just out for a walk", but they will be back, not to worry. And, of course, you would say "I knew you would have a logical explanation Mr. Fox. Most of us wouldn't accept that answer but the state executives say to Mr. Fox, I knew you would have an acceptable answer.If you were to ask the state Toll Operations Executives what the turnover rate has been while toll collectors were managed by state management and what it has been and is still now while being run by these outsourced companies, you will not get an answer.I can't even imagine how these executives sell this to our Representatives and Senators to get them to appropriate the money for doing this and justifying them doing it while still maintaining their own jobs.Obviously a career as a toll collector is not an option at all for young or middle aged people. You can work there a few months until another jobs comes along and get a paycheck but don't count on the benefits or the salary to make a living for your family.Just isn't possible under this situation. The reason I say this is after 15 years of employment with these outsourced companies, I now am making a great salary which is $8.19 per hour. I am currently 68 years old, so I could conceivable be making $9.00 an hour by the time I'm 80.



You would make more money working at Burger King than you would make being a toll collector. And, just to think, at one time people used to brag about working as a toll collector. When I first started for tolls, it took me about 2-1/2 years to get a full time position at one plaza. Now the turnover is so high, I have seen new collectors get full time positions after being a collector for less than a month. That should tell you something. And the state just keeps "turning a blind eye". Would make a person wonder why. I suspect the state maintained the revenue that they had been getting. The big losers in all of this outsourcing was toll collectors and supervisors. We not only lost money that we would have gotten but we lost a lot of the benefits that we received as state employees. Just who made out in all of this, I would say that it would be Faneuil, Inc. and Ronald Perelman.