A cursory search shows a train driver making $31/hr, which doesn't seem excessive.
I am also wary of the tactic of showing MTA workers as over-paid compared to a notoriously underpaid profession (e.g. teachers, who in this case held barely above inflation).
again for teachers you are forgetting the fact that they have similar generous benefits and only work 3/4 of the year...
It used to be that if you worked in the public sector you forwent a market rate salary in exchange for job security and a secure pension. Public sector employees are now making market wages + extremely valuable benefits which in turn are bankrupting municipalities.
In this context how do you tell a tax paying private sector mechanic, that his taxes need to go up in order to pay for the extremely generous union benefits of a public sector mechanic (who may make more than him)?
Lastly I would argue that municipalities have something of a fiducuiary duty to tax payers to get value for their tax dollar spent - rather than rewarding a voter block at tax payer expense.
>how do you tell a tax paying private sector mechanic [...]
How do you tell a tax paying public sector mechanic that they're going to lose their pension and health insurance?
A quick look at glassdoor.com for MTA transit jobs [1], I'm seeing drivers and conductors making ~$22/hour. Presumably this is an entry level rate. Some searching points to a high of ~$30/hour.
Project managers and programmers, of course, are making >$100,000 k. I have doubts that they are represented by the union, though. Of course, quietly lumping their salaries in with the blue-collar folks pushes a particular political narrative.
It seems that if you really want to trim the fat at the MTA, cut wages for the white-collar, un-unionized workers.
[1] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/new-york-city-conductor-s...
Comparing the annual salary of someone who clocks in their 9-5, and goes home on Thanksgiving and Christmas, compared to someone who is doing 60 hours a week, twenty of them from 3 am to 9 am, on Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday... Is comparing apples to oranges. [1] But it sure drives the outrage! Look, and be outraged at the annual take-home of that bus driver! Ignore the part where he worked like a dog, and gave up all life outside work for it!
Rates for hour worked, in equivalent conditions are the only fair comparison. And, unsurprisingly, they aren't high for MTA employees - especially in a city as outrageously expensive as NYC.
If you want to stop paying public servants overtime, then don't expect public servants to work outside of core business hours.
[1] Most salaried employees don't do unpaid overtime, period. Overtime, even paid overtime, is incredibly shitty, doubly so for holiday and night shift work, triply so for holiday night shift work. People should be compensated more for doing the same job at 2 am on Christmas Saturday, then for doing a 9-5 on Tuesday. [2]
[2] If your job expects regular unpaid overtime from you, you should either have an ownership stake in it, or get a new job, or have a really high on-paper salary.
At least half of tech workers I know do unpaid overtime. Almost all are on at-will contracts where they can be laid off anytime and I know almost none who have lifetime-final-year salary pension plans.
1.1. Even if you're an auxiliary on-call, you only need to work if something comes up. You don't need to be physically working, all through the night.
1.2. If you're constantly crunching, every week, you need to find another job, or demand non-meaningless equity, or higher wages, then your tech-worker peers, who do their 9-5. Most mature tech companies are full of people who do their 9-5. They employ hundreds of thousands of tech workers.
2. Tech workers are a tiny subset of the working population.
2.1. They also have much higher on-paper compensation then their similarly-trained peers in other fields (Bachelor's degree, and 0-5 years work experience), and even despite the occasional overtime, much higher hourly rates.
People say "oh, but diverting tax dollars from MTA, etc." The NYT pegs that at about $1.5 billion over two decades (since Pataki). https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-.... That's $75 million per year, a drop in the bucket in comparison. About enough to build a mile of subway line.
Basically these guys aren't getting their future screwed so they're an outlier. Same problem the Post Office has. When you aren't allowed to skimp on the perks and pass the buck to the government of the future you don't look very competitive.
Even in the face of the financial crisis and budget shortfalls, the M.T.A. has given concession after concession to its main labor union.
Members of the Transport Workers Union got a total of 19 percent in pay raises between 2009 and 2016, compared with 12 percent for the city’s teachers union over the same period.
The labor contracts also gave members lifetime spousal health benefits and free rides on the Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. (They already were allowed to ride the subway for free.)
Particularly insane:
Subway workers, including managers and administrative personnel, now make an average of about $155,000 annually in salary, overtime and benefits, according to a Times analysis of data compiled by the federal Department of Transportation. That is far more than in any other American transit system; the average in cities like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington is less than $100,000 in total compensation annually.