Some Facts and Hard Questions for LTD
Brothers and Sisters if you want to learn something more about the company that you work for just go the entire budget for LTD. You can find it on the Internet. It is located at:
http://www.ltd.org/site_files/budget/budget.htm
Feel free to check out the information that you have read so far from poor ol’ Joe Hill.
So what does our Finance Department say about resources for the District?
Fiscal Year Total Resources Percent Increase
01-02 $30,170,620
02-03 $30,887,801 2.38%
03-04 $32,589,770 5.51%
04-05 $34,539,430 5.98%
Source LTD Budget document
So let me get this straight, the District has been going up in resources every year. And they are complaining about not having enough to bargain with us in good faith. They want to cut service 4% and limit all union increases to a total of 4%. Union wages and benefits are running about $12.5 million. So 4% is equal to $500,000. This is about $100,000 more than previously assumed, but then the budget document does not tell us how much our union wages are in total for the year. But a 5.98% increase in revenue is equal to $1,949,000. So the Union negotiations are only eligible to get us 25.6% of the District revenue for this year. We don't want it all, but we do have more than 2/3's of the workers from LTD under our contract.
In fact more than $3,000,000 of all District Revenue is from fares that are collected only because we are there to sell fares, collect fares or empty the fare boxes. I don’t know about you but this sounds like a raw deal to me. Seems like the District could afford some more for the employees in general. (But believe me they have taken care of the Admin employees.) But as George Orwell said "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." You will see this is true later down below. Also whether the District is telling the truth or not about how poor the District is, might not have been a problem if the District had not transferred away the rainy day fund to the capital fund so that lots of fun computers, color copy machines and other great STUFF could be bought. You know STUFF is so important.
This would especially not be true if they dumped the BRT Money Pit. You know the only good thing that I think that Ronald Reagan did, was cancel the MX missile program. This was a stupid plan to truck (bus) missiles around the Nevada desert so the Ruskies could not be able to predict where to hit them. It was a major money pit. Just like our own Emx. Dump the BRT plan or at least shelve it for a while, buy cheaper buses, increase frequency, stay with proven simple technology and do a better job marketing, but then I am just dumb ol' bus driver.
Now for the Questions.
How come the budget document does not list Hamm’s pay and benefits anywhere? Are they some big secret or are we just embarrassed about how much we pay this guy.
How come in the benefits list it shows disability for Union and Admin employees? Union folks only get 26 weeks of disability benefits, but the admin folks get LONG TERM disability. They are not the same by a long stretch. If they get disabled they get paid until they turn 65. Why is that? Are these people more important than us union folks? The way the budget document is printed it looks like we are treated equally. This is a lie.
How come the budget document shows life insurance for union and non-union employees. But they are not the same, are they? How come the admin folks get $50,000 life insurance and we get $30,000? If we die we have families to take care of too you know. Or is it the same answer as number 2 – we are just not worth it? The way the budget document is printed it looks like we are treated equally. This is a lie.
How come the admin employees get 6% of their gross pay, tax-free, every paycheck all year long for retirement savings? Union workers 10 cent for every hour we work for retirement, and we never get that money? So a union employee gets $17.30 per month but admin employees who must earn on average about $5,000 per month on average put away $300 per in their retirement slush fund and they get this paid to them. Do my fellow union brothers and sisters know that? How unfair is this? Wait til you see the effect this has on retirement.
But the retirement differences do not stop there. Oh nooooo. You do know that we union folks get $55.00 per year of service a LTD worker but did you know that admin employees get 1.75% of their final high pay for every year that they have worked (until the 25th year, then it goes TURBO for Admin)? Hey, let's see how that works, Joe….
Ok ... lets say that an Admin employee made the same wage as a top paid bus driver (but most of them make more - a whole lot more). The BLOG does not support the table so if you have any questions email EPRush1@aol.com and request this report (Joe Hill 4).
Column Numbers
Years of Hard Work for Union and years of service for admin.
1. Union or Admin Wages (using the top wage rate for drivers)
2. Defined Benefit/month
3. Defined Contribution for service with no investment return
4. Pay Out of Defined Contribution plan at 240 months earning 5% annuity
5. Total Retirement paid to retiree.
6. How much better for Admin. You are getting screwed by this much!
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Current Monthly 6% Slush Monthly Monthly Percent
Wages Benefit Fund Benefit Total More!!!!
Admin with 10 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 559.04 $ 23,000.64 $ 152.00 $ 711.04 29.28%
Union with 10 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 550.00 $0 $0 $ 550.00
Admin with 15 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 838.57 $ 34,500.96 $ 228.00 $ 1,066.57 29.28%
Union with 15 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 825.00 $0 $0 $ 825.00
Admin with 20 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 1,118.09 $ 46,001.28 $ 303.00 $ 1,421.09 29.19%
Union with 20 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 1,100.00 $0 $0 $ 1,100.00
The Admin Turbo Retirement Benefit Kicks for Admin 25 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 2,395.90 $ 57,501.60 $ 379.00 $2,774.90 101%
A whopping 101.81% more than us in the union!
Union with 25 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 1,375.00 $0 $0 $ 1,375.00
Source: Developed from the information in the LTD Administrative Employee Retirement and ATU/LTD Pension Trust Plans
These figures do not include any growth in the investments that the admin employees gain as they get their 6% month in and month out. So their take at retirement is even more than our conservative chart shows. Well, Joe Hill thinks that this is pretty crappy. No matter how long you work for LTD, if you are an admin employee you are better off than the Union folks, who do the heavy lifting around here. They get paid more in wages almost across the board. They get better benefits in life and disability insurance, and their retirement is 100% better for long service to the District.
Our bargaining team has to hold Hamm's feet to the fire. LTD open your clenched fist would ya, huh? Can you really look your employees in the face knowing that you, the managers, the decision makers, treat yourselves so much better than the rest of us. You decide your own pay and for your other admin pals. You then treat the union employees worse than children because our pay and benefits are almost like an allowance from our mommy and daddy.
Now there is this little thing about money. Betcha didn't know that there are quite a few employees or their spouses that are tax payers to LTD. I'll bet that Hamm and Pangborn don't pay LTD taxes. I'll bet their fancy pants lawyers from Portland, who are working at doing the bosses screwing of the workers, don't even pay taxes even though they are supposed to, when they provide services or work in the District - just like my carpenter brother's company had to when they worked on Autzen Stadium. They just get away with it cause, it makes it easier to screw us and besides the bosses don't tax their buddies.
Joe's Suggestions for Fairness and being "At Your Service":
Tax those big time lawyers that are working in our District. Don't cut service! Try being "At Your Service" for the sake of the public. Making a 4% service cut and making a limit demand of 4% in bargainiing with us is transparent and unfair to the public and us. Recent ridership records in the budget document show a decline in riders. With cuts in frequency, some runs cut altogether and other stupid changes this is not surprising. It's just bad management. Cutting service and limiting pay for workers is really wrong especially true when you are sitting on $1.949 million more than last year in resources. Driving our system into the ground to build the BRT and then think they will come is not proven and in fact it is probably foolish.
LTD needs to bargain truely in good faith! There are some real unfair things at LTD. Start by remembering that we are people, with families, loved ones and events that we like to be part of too. Other places are more flexible - LTD could be too. It certainly is for admin employees. A little creativity and fair hearted thinking on your part would be nice. You won't find it with highly paid Portland lawyers who will likely get as much money in fees as it would cost to improve our life and disability insurance would cost.
The retirement differences between admin and the union employees are outrageous. Our jobs are physically demanding - much more than admin jobs. There just does not seem to be any fair explanation that admin employees should get 101% more than union empoyees with 25 years of service! At a minimum, you should fix retirement or be ashamed.
Solidarity Forever,
Joe Hill
Brothers and Sisters if you want to learn something more about the company that you work for just go the entire budget for LTD. You can find it on the Internet. It is located at:
http://www.ltd.org/site_files/budget/budget.htm
Feel free to check out the information that you have read so far from poor ol’ Joe Hill.
So what does our Finance Department say about resources for the District?
Fiscal Year Total Resources Percent Increase
01-02 $30,170,620
02-03 $30,887,801 2.38%
03-04 $32,589,770 5.51%
04-05 $34,539,430 5.98%
Source LTD Budget document
So let me get this straight, the District has been going up in resources every year. And they are complaining about not having enough to bargain with us in good faith. They want to cut service 4% and limit all union increases to a total of 4%. Union wages and benefits are running about $12.5 million. So 4% is equal to $500,000. This is about $100,000 more than previously assumed, but then the budget document does not tell us how much our union wages are in total for the year. But a 5.98% increase in revenue is equal to $1,949,000. So the Union negotiations are only eligible to get us 25.6% of the District revenue for this year. We don't want it all, but we do have more than 2/3's of the workers from LTD under our contract.
In fact more than $3,000,000 of all District Revenue is from fares that are collected only because we are there to sell fares, collect fares or empty the fare boxes. I don’t know about you but this sounds like a raw deal to me. Seems like the District could afford some more for the employees in general. (But believe me they have taken care of the Admin employees.) But as George Orwell said "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others." You will see this is true later down below. Also whether the District is telling the truth or not about how poor the District is, might not have been a problem if the District had not transferred away the rainy day fund to the capital fund so that lots of fun computers, color copy machines and other great STUFF could be bought. You know STUFF is so important.
This would especially not be true if they dumped the BRT Money Pit. You know the only good thing that I think that Ronald Reagan did, was cancel the MX missile program. This was a stupid plan to truck (bus) missiles around the Nevada desert so the Ruskies could not be able to predict where to hit them. It was a major money pit. Just like our own Emx. Dump the BRT plan or at least shelve it for a while, buy cheaper buses, increase frequency, stay with proven simple technology and do a better job marketing, but then I am just dumb ol' bus driver.
Now for the Questions.
How come the budget document does not list Hamm’s pay and benefits anywhere? Are they some big secret or are we just embarrassed about how much we pay this guy.
How come in the benefits list it shows disability for Union and Admin employees? Union folks only get 26 weeks of disability benefits, but the admin folks get LONG TERM disability. They are not the same by a long stretch. If they get disabled they get paid until they turn 65. Why is that? Are these people more important than us union folks? The way the budget document is printed it looks like we are treated equally. This is a lie.
How come the budget document shows life insurance for union and non-union employees. But they are not the same, are they? How come the admin folks get $50,000 life insurance and we get $30,000? If we die we have families to take care of too you know. Or is it the same answer as number 2 – we are just not worth it? The way the budget document is printed it looks like we are treated equally. This is a lie.
How come the admin employees get 6% of their gross pay, tax-free, every paycheck all year long for retirement savings? Union workers 10 cent for every hour we work for retirement, and we never get that money? So a union employee gets $17.30 per month but admin employees who must earn on average about $5,000 per month on average put away $300 per in their retirement slush fund and they get this paid to them. Do my fellow union brothers and sisters know that? How unfair is this? Wait til you see the effect this has on retirement.
But the retirement differences do not stop there. Oh nooooo. You do know that we union folks get $55.00 per year of service a LTD worker but did you know that admin employees get 1.75% of their final high pay for every year that they have worked (until the 25th year, then it goes TURBO for Admin)? Hey, let's see how that works, Joe….
Ok ... lets say that an Admin employee made the same wage as a top paid bus driver (but most of them make more - a whole lot more). The BLOG does not support the table so if you have any questions email EPRush1@aol.com and request this report (Joe Hill 4).
Column Numbers
Years of Hard Work for Union and years of service for admin.
1. Union or Admin Wages (using the top wage rate for drivers)
2. Defined Benefit/month
3. Defined Contribution for service with no investment return
4. Pay Out of Defined Contribution plan at 240 months earning 5% annuity
5. Total Retirement paid to retiree.
6. How much better for Admin. You are getting screwed by this much!
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Current Monthly 6% Slush Monthly Monthly Percent
Wages Benefit Fund Benefit Total More!!!!
Admin with 10 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 559.04 $ 23,000.64 $ 152.00 $ 711.04 29.28%
Union with 10 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 550.00 $0 $0 $ 550.00
Admin with 15 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 838.57 $ 34,500.96 $ 228.00 $ 1,066.57 29.28%
Union with 15 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 825.00 $0 $0 $ 825.00
Admin with 20 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 1,118.09 $ 46,001.28 $ 303.00 $ 1,421.09 29.19%
Union with 20 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 1,100.00 $0 $0 $ 1,100.00
The Admin Turbo Retirement Benefit Kicks for Admin 25 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 2,395.90 $ 57,501.60 $ 379.00 $2,774.90 101%
A whopping 101.81% more than us in the union!
Union with 25 years
$ 38,334.40 $ 1,375.00 $0 $0 $ 1,375.00
Source: Developed from the information in the LTD Administrative Employee Retirement and ATU/LTD Pension Trust Plans
These figures do not include any growth in the investments that the admin employees gain as they get their 6% month in and month out. So their take at retirement is even more than our conservative chart shows. Well, Joe Hill thinks that this is pretty crappy. No matter how long you work for LTD, if you are an admin employee you are better off than the Union folks, who do the heavy lifting around here. They get paid more in wages almost across the board. They get better benefits in life and disability insurance, and their retirement is 100% better for long service to the District.
Our bargaining team has to hold Hamm's feet to the fire. LTD open your clenched fist would ya, huh? Can you really look your employees in the face knowing that you, the managers, the decision makers, treat yourselves so much better than the rest of us. You decide your own pay and for your other admin pals. You then treat the union employees worse than children because our pay and benefits are almost like an allowance from our mommy and daddy.
Now there is this little thing about money. Betcha didn't know that there are quite a few employees or their spouses that are tax payers to LTD. I'll bet that Hamm and Pangborn don't pay LTD taxes. I'll bet their fancy pants lawyers from Portland, who are working at doing the bosses screwing of the workers, don't even pay taxes even though they are supposed to, when they provide services or work in the District - just like my carpenter brother's company had to when they worked on Autzen Stadium. They just get away with it cause, it makes it easier to screw us and besides the bosses don't tax their buddies.
Joe's Suggestions for Fairness and being "At Your Service":
Tax those big time lawyers that are working in our District. Don't cut service! Try being "At Your Service" for the sake of the public. Making a 4% service cut and making a limit demand of 4% in bargainiing with us is transparent and unfair to the public and us. Recent ridership records in the budget document show a decline in riders. With cuts in frequency, some runs cut altogether and other stupid changes this is not surprising. It's just bad management. Cutting service and limiting pay for workers is really wrong especially true when you are sitting on $1.949 million more than last year in resources. Driving our system into the ground to build the BRT and then think they will come is not proven and in fact it is probably foolish.
LTD needs to bargain truely in good faith! There are some real unfair things at LTD. Start by remembering that we are people, with families, loved ones and events that we like to be part of too. Other places are more flexible - LTD could be too. It certainly is for admin employees. A little creativity and fair hearted thinking on your part would be nice. You won't find it with highly paid Portland lawyers who will likely get as much money in fees as it would cost to improve our life and disability insurance would cost.
The retirement differences between admin and the union employees are outrageous. Our jobs are physically demanding - much more than admin jobs. There just does not seem to be any fair explanation that admin employees should get 101% more than union empoyees with 25 years of service! At a minimum, you should fix retirement or be ashamed.
Solidarity Forever,
Joe Hill
Joe Hill 3
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