By The Editors, Crain’s New York Business; May 13, 2019
Stop the presses: Transit workers are exploiting the system to rack up huge amounts of overtime.
The revelation that a 33-year Long Island Rail Road track worker with a $54,989 base salary raked in $311,162 last year, outrageous as it was, came as no surprise. Every year veteran Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees cash in massively on overtime. Every year the abuse is flagged by salary-data hounds at the Empire Center for New York State Policy. Every year the media publishes the story. And every year the MTA pledges to act but does nothing. At the LIRR, overtime costs rose more than 50% in the past four years.