Second Ave. Sagas

Samuelsen responds to overtime attack

Written by

Benjamin Kabak

in

,

As the management at the MTA prepares to stop overtime and sick day abuses, those who head the labor unions are not too pleased with the news. John Samuelsen defended his workers from management’s critique today. MTA heads, he said to the Daily News, “demean their own workers publicly on a consistent basis, and they fail to acknowledge NYC Transit workers work in some of the most horrific conditions you can imagine. Several bus operators are assaulted every week, subway workers breathe in toxic fumes… We put our lives on the line to move the riding public, and when we get sick, the company tries to portray us as slackers.”

Samuelsen’s statement is not unexpected, but it misses the mark. No one is questioning the nature of the emloyees’ work. Track work is not a walk in the park, and while I don’t believe “several” bus drivers are assaulted weekly, the job is not without its dangers. In return, MTA employees can retire well before most private-sector employee cans and with a robust pension and benefits package.

What the MTA wants to combat isn’t the proper use of sick days but egregious violations of sick day policies. They want to combat lax overtime rules that allow workers to get paid for 40 hours of work while putting in fewer than 35 hours. They want to minimize overtime costs and shouldn’t be faulted for it. Publicly, Samuelsen is defending his union members. I have to believe, though, that behind closed doors, he’s more willing to work with the MTA than he has let on so far.

Comments

53 responses to “Samuelsen responds to overtime attack”

  1. Alon Levy

    Samuelsen is taking Walder’s bait, by turning it into a labor pissmatch. When unions aren’t popular, it’s stupid to argue that union members deserve high pay.

    If I were more cynical, I’d say it’s because Walder is right, or because Samuelsen doesn’t actually know enough about how his members work to be able to explain how a cut in overtime would make things worse for the customers. But what’s more likely is that union culture is such that people are used to talking in terms of what workers deserve, and that when they do mention the customers, it’s as an afterthought (“everybody knows we need those station agents”).

    As I said in the previous thread, it’s harder to see things in terms of culture because that forces introspection. It’s easier to just dismiss Samuelsen as a hack or a goon. But it doesn’t make it true.

    Reply
  2. nycpat

    I think the TWU should pull the rug outfrom under Walder by publicly calling for the disbandment of the MTA. NYCT should be run by a commisioner appointed by the Mayor. Ray Kelly gets $190,000 a year. Why should we pay Walder AND Pendergast?

    Reply
    1. Alon Levy

      Even on the worst interpretation of the overtime crusade, Walder is more competent than anyone Bloomberg would appoint. The salary Walder gets is a rounding error compared to the waste in fare collection, turnaround times, and train staffing.

      Reply
      1. nycpat

        I mean just as a rhetorical tactic in the tabloids. Why are these executives bashing their workforce in the papers? They can sit down and horse trade with the TWU whenever they want.

        Reply
        1. Rhywun

          Because it’s the public that pays the workers’ salaries? I believe the public sorely needs to understand everything going on behind the usual closed doors. Most NYC voters reflexively support unions without knowing any of the details–even against their own interests. An airing of these details in public is long overdue.

          Reply
          1. nycpat

            Here’s a detail. Safety sensitive TWU workers can’t work a second job w/out permission form the MTA. If permission is granted they can only work one day. Permission is almost never granted. How come coppers and FD can work second jobs.

            Reply
            1. Alon Levy

              I can’t work a second job without getting deported.

              Reply
  3. James

    I think the guy should lay off the Hometown Buffet.

    Reply
  4. oscar

    plenty of people have tough jobs.
    and many people these days don’t have a job at all

    so cry me a river

    Reply
    1. nycpat

      People think $2 is too high a fare. Cry ME a river.

      Reply
      1. Rhywun

        Around here you’ll find that there are a few of us who would agree that the present fare–priced as it is at the extreme low end so as to be affordable to all–is too low. It’s priced way below cost and leaves the system wide open to political attacks.

        Reply
        1. nycpat

          And protects our fearless leaders and betters from political responsibility. Break up the MTA.

          Reply
          1. john b

            i’m unclear on how breaking up a government organization just to replace it with another government organization is going to result in the government being ok with raising the fares. do you have an explanation for that?

            Reply
            1. nycpat

              Don’t you think that replacing the Board of Ed with mayoral control has been an improvement? I suppose you want to privatize everything.

              Reply
              1. Alon Levy

                A lot of teachers will tell you that mayoral control is just a union-busting scheme.

                Reply
                1. nycpat

                  The mayor is who he is. We the people didn’t have to re-elect him. I think we should have a democracy where elected officials are answerable to the people for how things are working.

                  Reply
                  1. Alon Levy

                    The people didn’t have a say in his abolition of term limits.

                    Reply
                    1. nycpat

                      No they didn’t. I think it’s a disgrace that the weathiest man in town is mayor. He has spent $250,000,000 over 3 elections. I despair for my country.

              2. john b

                wow talk about jumping to conclusions. i’m not in favor of privatization. it justs seems like a knee jerk reaction to lay all the blame on the mta and to say that breaking it up will solve everything. this seems to be a common refrain here but with very little offered in the way of suggestions on an alternative to running the mta.

                if you don’t support privatization, which i gather from your comment you don’t, then only another government run agency will take the mta’s place and it too will run into the same problems that the mta is currently having as long as the same politicians are in power and citizenry want their cake and eat it too.

                my comment was about the lack of “constructive” criticism here.

                Reply
                1. nycpat

                  My idea was that the TWU should counter Walders public relations attacks with attacks not only on his compensation but on his position itself.
                  I also think that Authorities should be replaced when possible by more politically accountable entities.

                  Reply
  5. Al D

    Just because MTA management may actually enforce some rules and procedures, Samuelsen has a problem with that?

    Reply
  6. Kid Twist

    I have to believe, though, that behind closed doors, he’s more willing to work with the MTA than he has let on so far.

    Really? When has any leader of Local 100 ever shown any sign of grasping the needs of the riding public or the taxpayers?

    Reply
  7. John

    So what’s he saying? Because they have tough jobs they have the right to abuse the system? Great message…

    Reply
  8. Paulp521

    News flash citizens: when the MTA layed off 260 station agents 05/11 they are now filling those jobs with workers…….you guessed it……working overtime. Only an agency as crimminally stupid as the MTA would layoff straight time workers, many I might add not at top pay, and replace them with workers at top pay making time and a half. Then they complain about O.T. costs….get rid of them all…Walder, Penderast..all of them.

    Reply
    1. Rhywun

      Really? The agents that were layed off at every station I’ve visited are – gone. They’re even boarding up token booths – presumably getting ready to remove them.

      Reply
    2. Son of Spam

      Are you sure about that? Aren’t these the same tours that they weren’t filling with replacements when the regular workers called in sick? (And that’s A LOT of sick.)

      Reply
      1. Paulp

        The real story you will not find in the papers is:
        the MTA layed off the very bottom of the senority list. Those people worked mostly revenue booths on weekends, either working for senior people on their days off or having picked high volume booths no one with better senority would want.
        When the MTA layed -off these station agents they had few people to cover these revenue booths FRi-Mon on weekends. So the MTA has been issuing mass calls for O.T. work to Station Agents to cover the jobs that the layed-off agnets once held.
        So what kind of Agency says they want to save money by laying people off, does it, then pays people time and a half to cover their jobs?

        Reply
        1. nycpat

          Hahahahaha! I hope the TWU gets this in the papers.

          Reply
  9. Sharon

    Why is walder talking about these work rules in publically? It is too prempt the twu from spreading misinformation through Albany politicians and other entities on the union patrols such as the straphangers campaign. The practices walder has spoken about are just the tip of the iceberg. I have identified $2 billion per year in waste without impacting service most would not harm the average hard working employee

    Reply
  10. Older and Wiser

    Aside from a few admirable altruists in the religious sector, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t seek to extract the absolute maximum in the way of pay, benefits, work rules, etc. they could possibly get their employers to agree to. Union leaders don’t do anything LeBron James’ agent isn’t trying to do with potential employers like the the NY Knicks at this very moment.

    Every overtime rule, loophole, benefit, and wage enjoyed by the TWU was negotiated and signed off on by a succesion of MTA honchos, most of them pretty sober and often quite conservative businessmen.

    One could ague that public employees shouldn’t be unionized at all, but that’s just not going to happen in the age of Obama. Jay Walder has taught at ivy league universities. He should be smart enought to figure out that any business model that requires the repeal of human nature isn’t going to be very successful very long.

    Reply
    1. Rhywun

      Union leaders don’t do anything LeBron James’ agent isn’t trying to do with potential employers like the the NY Knicks at this very moment.

      Except I don’t have to pay LeBron James’ salary, thank goodness. I DO have to pay the salaries of NYC’s gargantuan public employee force, and you bet I want to minimize that cost.

      Every overtime rule, loophole, benefit, and wage enjoyed by the TWU was negotiated and signed off on by a succession of MTA honchos, most of them pretty sober and often quite conservative businessmen.

      Conservative businessmen often become liberal politicians – witness our current mayor. The mere fact of being a politician – and the main reason public employees should NOT be unionized – means gladly showering public workers with salaries and benefits they KNOW cannot be afforded, and suffering no consequences from it beyond possibly being voted out of office (and even that’s unlikely) and into some cushy law practice they can use to pad their – again, taxpayer-financed – pensions.

      It’s a really loathsome vicious circle. And you’re absolutely right that it will never go away. Because the unions and the politicians feed on each other.

      Reply
      1. nycpat

        But you don’t mention the debt that Pataki ran up. The vicious circle of the bond holders and their campaign contributions.

        Reply
    2. Alon Levy

      Aside from a few admirable altruists in the religious sector, I’ve never met anyone who didn’t seek to extract the absolute maximum in the way of pay, benefits, work rules, etc. they could possibly get their employers to agree to.

      What you say doesn’t exist is in fact quite common among German, Dutch, and Scandinavian unions, and even at SEIU. Those unions extract wage increases when they’re affordable, but also try to help make their companies more profitable. It’s just the old manufacturing and public sector unions in the US that don’t do that; they have nothing to fear from bankruptcy, because their employers will get bailed out no matter what happens.

      Reply
      1. Older and Wiser

        If such a constructive labor-management relationship was ever going to happen here, Elliot Sander would have been the one to make it happen. He was in the process of engaging labor leaders in just such olive-branch dialog at the time he was driven off by our unelected genius of a governor.

        So now the MTA is stuck with a quixotic steamroller type who’s determined to “take the place apart”. I conceed that he’s already proving remarkably efficient at dismantling public transportation. The biggest remining question is how many billions of dollars it will take his successor to put the place back in woring order again after Walder gets his $800 million parachute to bail out.

        Reply
        1. Alon Levy

          So far, Walder’s contributions to the MTA have been to use $200/hour consultants from London instead of $500/hour local consultants; to install train arrival clocks on the IRT; to openly admit that the MTA spends several times as much on each project as peer agencies worldwide; and to look for ways to reduce costs of fare collection and hotline staff. This isn’t dismantling public transportation.

          And he doesn’t have an $800 million parachute. He has a couple hundred thousand, if he gets fired. Get the numbers right.

          Reply
          1. Older and Wiser

            You’re right, it isn’t $800 million, merely 800 thousand. I knew that myself, but the editing skills of a senior citizen can dwindle markedly when working a keyboard past 2 o’clock in the moning.

            Reply
          2. nycpat

            Those arrival clocks were being installed under Sander.

            Reply
            1. Alon Levy

              The ones on the IRT were unused until Walder discovered them and had them activated.

              Reply
              1. nycpat

                They were being installed, Walder had nothing to do with it.

                Reply
                1. Alon Levy

                  They were installed, but turned off. Walder’s the one who had them turned on while the rest were still being installed. He’s also the one who got the compromise clocks on the IND, telling you how long you have to wait until the next train arrives on the track but not which train it is.

                  Reply
              2. Andrew

                Nonsense. Nothing against Walder, but PA/CIS is a long-term capital project that has been going on for years (I think it was started in the Kalikow era). The signs weren’t ready to be turned when Sander was around.

                Reply
                1. Alon Levy

                  Yes, it’s a long-term project, but the signs were unused and usable. Walder’s contributions have been to turn on the parts of the system as they become ready, instead of wait for everything to be installed.

                  Reply
                  1. Andrew

                    Wrong. The plan was always for a phased startup, as we’re seeing now.

                    Reply
      2. nycpat

        This idea that TWU never gives up anything is hogwash. Productivity goes up with every contract. Thirty years ago NYCT had a 20/50 pension! Certain O/T rules have been given back. Work programs are more efficient with every contract.

        Reply
        1. Alon Levy

          I’m not talking about giving up a few benefits. I’m talking about embracing efficiency improvements: OPTO, short turnaround times, station agent cuts, schedule adherence, wage restraint in bad times.

          Reply
          1. nycpat

            They accepted wage restaint in the contract after 9/11. The MTA has never REALLY pushed for OPTO. In the short run it won’t save them much money and they don’t have the ability to impliment it.

            Reply
          2. Older and Wiser

            This is all stuff to be worked out at the bargaining table. Perhaps the unions would be more receptive to more of it if the Walder MTA had shown the slightest interest in constructive engagement. Big hint: if you really hope to “partner” with the TWU & DC37, the way to indicate that is not by running them thru the courts or bashing them in the media.

            Reply
            1. nycpat

              Walder is not Cuomo’s guy. Maybe he will collect that severance package.

              Reply
            2. Alon Levy

              What both you and nycpat are implying is that the end of OPTO on the L had nothing to do with the TWU demanding ridiculous standards for it.

              Here’s a hint for you: when the economy’s in a depression, don’t make wage hike demands. This isn’t bargaining table talk; it’s a general rule for how not to bankrupt your employer.

              Reply
              1. nycpat

                3900 conductors are no way going to bankrupt a city/state with a trillions of dollars tax base. I don’t care if there is OPTO, it will mean a hefty raise for me, it’s just I know that savings aren’t going to be what people think they are. I know it will mean slower trains and more lawsuits.
                Those ridiculous stanards are the MTA’s RULES governing the safe operation of trains.

                Reply
                1. Alon Levy

                  The TWU pushed for those rules. And why would OPTO slow trains down or create lawsuits?

                  Reply
                  1. Andrew

                    As currently implemented, OPTO requires the train operator to walk across the cab to open the doors on the left side of the train, and then to walk back to the right side after closing the doors. Of course, if OPTO were to ever become widespread, cameras and monitors could be installed to allow the train operator to open and close the left-side doors from the right side of the cab.

                    As for lawsuits, the argument is that OPTO is unsafe, although I haven’t seen any evidence of that from other systems that use OPTO.

                    Reply
  11. fasteddie

    stop crying over spilt milk bus mechanic dying of cancer from diesel
    fumes heart attacks ect your 9-5 office job dont require early death
    god forbid an man gets sick pay to pay his bills .you dont have the same job unions are america that your faults when you are sick you get no pay unions help workers get a fair liveley hood you dont like it too bad!!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More posts