Hacker News Reader

Comment by jcnnghm | Hacker News Reader

$71,000, which is high, but not astronomical

They also, on average, get a $50,000/year benefits package, including a fixed-benefit pension. Plus paid overtime. That's not high, or astronomical, it's absolutely outrageous.

View on HN

including a fixed-benefit pension

Wow. One of the factors contributing to the problems that many, many cities across the country have. Pensions should always be tied to rates of return of what the employee and employer put into the plan, otherwise future workers or tax payers will end up footing the bill when the market goes lower than the pension requires to break even.

There are so many falsehoods and half-truths packed into this comment that I don't even know where to start.

So your choice is to address none of them? Cool.

Fact: California and Illinois have huge debt problems. They both have really high taxes yet still can't fix them. These problems are both, funnily enough, related directly to underfunded government pension liabilities, related directly to public services with strong unions involved. In essence, precisely what you are saying is false is exactly what has happened in these states.

thatswrong0 summed it up pretty well. Of course, if you want to tell me what's wrong with both of our statements, I'd love to hear it.

Please stop throwing around numbers without citing them. It's not helpful at all. Also, I don't think paid overtime should be considered controversial.

Google it, stop being lazy. You're welcome to do your own research and refute something.

It's not the overtime that's controversial, it's the gaming of the system. For example missing a shift and then taking another one to get overtime. The only people in the entire country who get overtime for working 35 hours are transit operators.

I'm not in the US so I'm not saying your wrong, but I used to get overtime for working a 35 hour week sometimes in my previous job. And I left it, partially because of the hours. Radiographer, 35 hour week, shifts and on call. 35 hours per week (excluding call). So I would get rostered 35 hours in one week, and 35 in the next, back to back, then 4 days off. Most hours were at night. A night rate then applied. If I didn't get 2 days a week off, I'd easily end up doing a 35 hour week all paid at overtime. I still have the pay sheets I think. It all depends how you spin it, yes, I did 35 hour weeks whilst getting paid overtime. The flip side was 10 consecutive evening/night shifts, with on call in a stressful environment. Even if I wasn't called my sleep was poor. I now take any claim that a job is overpaid/underworked with a pinch of salt as its not always what it seems.

This is the graphic that the local news had up repeatedly today: https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/p480x480/1010571...

I appreciate the graphic, but it seems like there's a lot of conflicting information being handed around. I'm really not sure what I'm supposed to believe. I'd love to see an uninterested 3rd party gather and verify the facts and what not.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5975252

"Did you know that there are currently 3,459 BART retirees, and that the average pension payment per retiree/beneficiary is only $21,049?"

http://www.bartunion.org/

I don't know. This particular local news has a pretty good track record for being factual and "uninterested" (an odd word to use). I would trust them over the striking union's web site. But as others have suggested, you might need to seek out the facts yourself. Not many people are going to give you multiple sources for you the form your own opinion.

> "This particular local news has a pretty good track record for being factual and "uninterested" (an odd word to use)."

The news organization didn't even bother to cite their source. We don't know where they're getting their information from. Seeing a slide doesn't tell us anything. They could be reporting the misleading information that the comment I linked to you goes through. Or information given to them from management over at BART. Especially when there's conflicting information, it makes no sense to trust one side over another. Especially when it's management vs. labor because both sides want to appear as best as they can to the general public.

and 10-12 weeks paid time off. That is 1/5 of the year. Damn I wish I had that.

Organize and form a union with like-minded co-workers and then use your collective bargaining power to negotiate better terms of employment. You know you can do that, right?

(Assuming you live in America, that is.)

While technically still possible... unions don't really work like that any more. But even if I did, I would be adding to the problem not helping. No group should have the power the unions hold over their "members" and the companies. Many people are only in a union because they are required to be in order to perform the job they do. Some of them would rather work than strike. But they don't really have a choice. If the union members have a majority vote to strike, then they strike. And the strike is little more than extortion. For those BART riders that didn't have other means to get to work... they suffered. For BART riders that were able to drive, traffic was a complete and total cluster fuck this morning. This also effected everyone else that doesn't even ride BART but had their otherwise normal commute turned upside down. The union knows this so they have no problem being unreasonable pricks until BART finally gives in to the compromised extortion. I would never be in a union. We don't need them any more. (assuming the were ever needed... which is probably debatable)

Although I won't try to debate most of your points--I think we'll have to agree to disagree--I do think you're being unfair to say that a strike is extortion. The striking workers are also suffering. Every week that the strike continues is a 2% pay cut for this year. After a few days of the strike, commuters will have adjusted and the transit union leadership will start hearing it from their members and the "balance of power" will shift back towards the BART management. Eventually, there will come a point where the workers are begging to come back to work and the union's power will have been blunted for many years.

Not much else to say, just wanted to point out that the decision to strike is not taken lightly by any union. The potential downside is huge.

Their suffering is of their own doing (unless they are among those that voted against the strike. they're suffering as well). They don't have to beg to come back to work. They could come back tomorrow if they were not being so unreasonable.

The fact that employers can't permanently replace striking workers puts the power in the Union's hands. Perhaps it's not extortion (since no laws are broken), but I would call it coercion. Think about it from the employers' views. Employees says they're not happy with work, they don't show-up for work (unexcused absence). Employer can't fire them, and have to employ them should they return. So they hire some temporary workers, but can't keep them long term. The ones willing to work (temps) get the boot, and those that complained that their job is so bad (union workers) get to return anytime.

True, it is not the legal definition of extortion but the term extortion is "often used loosely to refer to everyday situations where one person feels indebted against their will, to another, in order to receive an essential service"[1]. Clearly no crime has been committed here since they have a right to strike. I always think of coercion as slightly different but I guess it is the more technically correct word.

It is also hard to even hire temps. They must cross the (sometimes aggressive) picket line, get called names (like scab), etc. Then there is the chance that the would-be temps are also in a union and therefore unable/unwilling to take the temp job.

There was that one time that all the striking air traffic controllers got canned and permanently replaced[2]. But that was federal and Pres. Reagan got in on it. So that is not likely to be an option with BART.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion [2] http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12292.html

Reply on news.ycombinator.com