... that we have an idiot in the White House who does not care one whit about the people in his home state. Under his administration, he has provided exactly $0 in aid to the MTA. If he cared in the slightest, he could provide enough funding to fix the problems.

But I will tell, they did a story on this on the local news and at a time when they are raising prices this is raising a lot of anger. Over the last decade people keep asking what they are doing with the money. Mismanagement, I believe is also a problem. It may be that the new transit head will be leaving because he and Cuomo can't get along.

He could fix this in an instant.

If Trump got personally involved in state business!

on unions. Looking at those roles, I'm guessing there's a lot of overtime in those paychecks.

I find this article one unions can use because most of the transit workers are not earning anything like what these GUYS are....as far as overtime...it's added on.

The contract is what gets the people on this list their high total compensation. If anything, the average person sees this, gets pissed because some yahoo track inspector gets a quarter million a year, and calls for defunding. Open your eyes; you're being used.

I think you're missing the point

their salaries are not part of the general discussion/bargaining

"president." I don't know about the chief measurement operator.

The rank and file have no chance of earning that type of money.

to.

As far as overtime..from what was reported on our local overtime boosted those salaries into the stratospheres. And it's not just the LIRR it's tHe MTA also.

I'll say it again.

Rank-and-file front-line workers can make a lot of money on railroads, which tend to have complicated, punitive contracts designed to force employers to pay a LOT of overtime, or hire more people.

These rank-and-filers are union members, covered by a collectively bargained union contract, bargained with the employer, and which the employer also agrees to.

They are not management or administration.

Employers would rather pay overtime than hire more people, because the periodic articles that the reactionary press trots out about "inflated salaries" routinely prompt calls from the public to rein in costs in general and unions in particular.

Employers love it when you post the names of workers and the money they made because it takes the heat off them.

You're being used to divide workers. Don't fall for it.

and you can hammer at it all night but these are not rank and file salaries and nothing you say will change that.

But not that good

For Bart in SF that the employees while paid a fair salary don’t make that kind of money unless special electrical workers on contract not by the hour.

It’s management that makes a ton of money, takes 3 hr lunches and whines when tickets go up it’s the employees fault.

I bet New York has the same problem.

And haven’t followed contracts since he retired other than noticing paying more for healthcare.

No system could afford it if everyone made that kind of money, ever. And anyone who thinks it all one level and equal, equal is kidding themselves.

track workers employed at any railroad. Most of those positions are track maintenance. That could apply to many trades, you don't see many female electricians, welders, auto mechanics, heavy equipment operators, etc, etc.

If I handed out that kind of overtime I would be fired. NO ONE does this other than with government jobs. It's insanely inefficient and a complete waste of taxpayer money.

Many are boosting their retirement calculation by cramming in loads of OT. I am in the SF Bay Area, you see police officers and firefighters here making $250-$400k a year with overtime.

These are not the overtime boosts we always hear about, they are their salaries

I'm impressed with their union for negotiating great salaries then if that is no overtime included.

those these days. You can still under circumstances get 2x, though 2 1/2 is more elusive

You can bargain anything, and it's yours if the employer agrees. Many legacy railroad contracts will have extra pay for all sorts of things. I know of one that would add differentials for night work, mileage of certain track, time over 8, time over 12, time over 5 days, time depending on who else was on the crew, differentials for distance over a certain distance, many of which could compound on each other. "Overtime" for these kinds of workers is much, much more than just "double time" or "time and a half on weekends."

when the reporting this patch.com article ripped off indicates these are large OT compensation packages for front-line workers, earned through contract. It's not me that's wrong, it's [Me.].

quite the opposite but nice try at distraction

not across the board as you well know and as you can't seem to understand it...done

They aren't salaries for the people on the list you posted, and they aren't salaries for anyone covered under a collective bargaining contract. It's true that not everyone has the option or ability to make that money in any given year, if that's your beef. But that's the case with any contract, in any workplace.

Union contracts are powerful, and definitely can help erase bias that results in economic inequality inherent in the system, leveling the playing field for a wide variety of workers. But the nature of work means that some skills will be more valued and needed than others, not everyone can do the same job, and seniority will always play a role. If an employer keeps that pool small, the people in that pool will benefit from it. Contracts in these cases will be written punitively, to make the employer pay through the nose to access that talent off hours or in emergencies, but again and again employers prefer to pay more in the moment rather than hire or train more people and risk paying people "to do nothing."

and yes, what you say is correct.

And the employee only gets a piece of a bigger chunk.

“The only one who made more than him in total pay was Chief Measurement Operator Thomas Caputo, who had a pay rate of $54, according to the data. Caputo racked up $344,147 in overtime in addition to his $117,499 salary.”

So at $54 an hour, x 40 hours a week x 52 weeks a year, it works out to about $112k, so that roughly checks out... how many hours does one have to work to make an ADDITIONAL $344,147?

Well, at $54 an hour, one would have to work an additional 6373 hours, or roughly every hour of every day for 265 days.

Of course, I doubt they were making straight pay on overtime, so let’s say it was all at double-time ($108 an hour). Then they only had to work every hour of every day for 132 days.

That means they worked about 5250 of the 8760 hours in the year (when you combined regular hours and overtime), which would mean a 14 hour workday every day (weekends and holidays included) for the entire year.

Anyone willing to put in this kind of effort deserves the money they earned!