NY fireman steals $86k per year taxfree disability pension while competing in marathons

The anti-union rhetoric is being funded by large corporate interests who don't want to have to pay union wages. Oh yeah sure, "unions have done their job" and now they can go away (so you can slash pay and treat your employees like shit).

Teaching, Police, etc. already have trouble attracting people because of low pay. You remove unions and pay will certainly be worse- and you want to slash benefits too? Good luck getting good teachers, and don't complain when cops are universally corrupt.

What leverage does management have when it has to deal with a union? You want to run the restaurant at the Tavern on the Green site, New York City says that you have to deal with a union (the Boathouse seems to run just fine without a union). The union is insane and has made ridiculous demands so nobody has taken over the space. You want to own an apartment building in NYC, you have to hire union workers to get the super, doormen and handymen even if you know of better and cheaper people who are nonunion.

Excuse me? There aren't any corporations who are paying me to understand that what unions have done to the US economy is terrible. Sorry.

What does "treat your employees like shit" exactly entail? We aren't in the 8th grade anymore so it would be helpful to write just slightly more intelligently. Yes, I'm sorry but most people in union jobs should get their wages cut because they are overpaid. It seems to have worked out okay for the foreign car companies who have factories in the US and only employee non union workers. Costs are much lower and if someone is bad, he/she gets fired.

Please give a site showing that education and police have trouble attracting people. That's complete bullshit. Every year the police academies are full of a new crop of people ready to cash in on ridiculous compensation and ridiculous job security. Is your argument really that we need to pay outlandish compensation just to field a police force and fill teachers' seats? 25 years ago when their compensation was much more reasonable, there was no shortage of either. It sounds like you need to go back to your union job.

Wouldn't it be a shame if vigilantes just happened to accidentally shove the cheating fireman and bankers in front of the NY Metro subway trains. That would be a crime. I would not recommend it as it would be against the wishes of The Gods ;-)

UncleB wrote:

The Banksters stole trillions in a matter of days. They wipe their butts with $86k.

Your outrage is misplaced

How did the banksters steal trillions? Banks LOST money, remember? That's what caused the whole problem.

Anyway, the difference is that I am paying the pension of this liar runner guy. As are you. And many of those banker guys are out of work.

And uncleb, if you are at all a progressive or for the little guy, you have to be against out of control state worker pensions - they are draining all the dollars out of budgets for education, parks, recreation, etc.

The bankers individually made off with $100M apiece and left the bank with trillions in losses.

Kept It wrote:

The bankers individually made off with $100M apiece and left the bank with trillions in losses.

too simplistic - try again

The bankers took 100M apiece and are living in style now while the rest of us are at the Union Mission sleeping on cots.

And maybe low quality air makes this guys respiratory system stop functioning. Or maybe it just kicks in at random times and he has to stop exercising. Not a big deal in a race but in a burning building that could be bad news. I don't know this guys case. It is probably like 90%+ a scam but race results don't prove it. The real problem is that guy might be disabled as a fire fighter but there are a zillion other jobs he could do. Disability should be the difference between those jobs and what he would have gotten as a fire fighter.And if you don't think disability is a scam, talk to doctors about patients asking for disability whose main problem is that they don't want to work anymore.

biggus dickus wrote:

dasfasd@hasd.com wrote:

What do race results matter? Would you argue that Murray Halberg wasn't disabled (as far as function as a fire fighter) even though the guy won a gold medal? I have no clue how disabled this guy is. But for the amount of money he is getting paid, they should be able to find him some type of work in the government. Same thing with all the teachers in rubber rooms.

I would not argue that Murry Halberg wasn't disabled. This is totally different Murry's disability was his arm, pretty important to a fire fighter I would think. This guy's disability is related to his respiratory system. I'd say a 17:30 5K is a pretty good test of the respiratory system. There are likely other factors to consider. Just pointing out that the guy is not a hobby jogger running 30 min 5Ks.

There are a lot of myths on how "public pensions" work. It's not like the employer is reaching into their pocket right now and paying the guys who are retired. It's a fund that the employers and employees contribute to over the years at rates the fund has determined will pay out their pension when they retire.

In my case, in order to receive 2.5% of last year's salary times my number of years of service as a pension, the fund management has decided that I must pay 8% of my pay into the system, and the employer pays about 11%. But if we didn't have the public employee pension system, the employer would be paying 7.5% to social security anyway. So the cost to the employer is only about 3.5% more than what they'd be paying anyway.

public employee wrote:

There are a lot of myths on how "public pensions" work. It's not like the employer is reaching into their pocket right now and paying the guys who are retired. It's a fund that the employers and employees contribute to over the years at rates the fund has determined will pay out their pension when they retire.

In my case, in order to receive 2.5% of last year's salary times my number of years of service as a pension, the fund management has decided that I must pay 8% of my pay into the system, and the employer pays about 11%. But if we didn't have the public employee pension system, the employer would be paying 7.5% to social security anyway. So the cost to the employer is only about 3.5% more than what they'd be paying anyway.

Do you feel bad about how pensions are draining state budgets?

Public employees are allowed to cheat the taxpayers by not paying thier full share of Soc Sec. The public employers also cheat Soc Sec by not paying their full share into the system. The rich are allowed to cap their payments. This is a ripoff of all the taxpayers. All Americans should pay into one Soc Sec fund, with no exceptions, and no cap. Even President Obama, and Senators should begin to pay into Soc Sec. That is the only way we can balance the Soc Sec System. No more Zionism / Apartheid should be allowed for the rich, for public civil servants, and gov't politicians.

Christie wrote:

Please give a site showing that education and police have trouble attracting people. That's complete bullshit. Every year the police academies are full of a new crop of people ready to cash in on ridiculous compensation and ridiculous job security.

Well, doesn't that support his point? Do you think people--bright people--will be attracted to those professions if you pay them peanuts and give them only a 401k? That would turn these into jobs that you do for a couple years only if you're desperate.

Is your argument really that we need to pay outlandish compensation just to field a police force and fill teachers' seats? 25 years ago when their compensation was much more reasonable, there was no shortage of either. It sounds like you need to go back to your union job.

No, 25 years ago public employee pensions were more generous than they are now. The employee pension contribution rates are rising and retirement age is going up, which are both necessary.

Even with the pensions now, what percentage of teachers quit within five years? What percentage of cops quit within five years? What are their turnover rates? Do you think turnover will drop if you get rid of pensions?

Cheaters wrote:

Public employees are allowed to cheat the taxpayers by not paying thier full share of Soc Sec. The public employers also cheat Soc Sec by not paying their full share into the system. The rich are allowed to cap their payments. This is a ripoff of all the taxpayers. All Americans should pay into one Soc Sec fund, with no exceptions, and no cap. Even President Obama, and Senators should begin to pay into Soc Sec. That is the only way we can balance the Soc Sec System. No more Zionism / Apartheid should be allowed for the rich, for public civil servants, and gov't politicians.

Public employees do contribute to and get Social Security.

The point is gov't, mil, politicians, citizens should all pay the same amt with no cap to Social Security, and should all pay 100% for their own retirements, and medical/dental benes with no taxpayers funds. There should be a total halt to taxpayer funded 20 year military, police and fire retirement plans. If they want to quit at any time they can like any other human being, they just have to pay for their own retirement and medical/dental benes with no taxpayer monies like the rest of us have to. If they don't like it they can quit the military, police, or fire depts, as nobody held a gun to their heads and made then join.

The corporations aren't paying you, they're paying the think tanks who influence how you think. They're pushing this idea of unions being passe and laying Detroit's problems at their feet. Meanwhile, GM actually lost tons of money in its financing division, not in cars. The car companies were failing because credit was tight.

Treating your employees like shit: literally not treating them like human beings. Hiring people only as temps and contractors, then firing them to avoid paying any benefits. Firing people with too much experience (this is what happens in charter schools, FYI, and prevents them from keeping good teachers). Cutting pay, increasing hours, and failing to understand why productivity drops.

What part of teacher and police compensation is "outlandish"? They don't make much in yearly salaries, but get good benefits to make up for it. It's still much, much less than people with similar educations would get in the private sector, and it's contributing to a real difficulty in keeping quality teachers (especially in city schools).

PD FD makes ridiculously high pay, while teacher don't. in NYC the PD FD get cost of living adjustments and make twice what they make upstate while teachers only make 10% above upstate.

yepper wrote:

Do you feel bad about how pensions are draining state budgets?

Is that a trick question? I just explained how in my case, and many like it, the pension has nothing to do with current budget crisis. It is an independently operated fund (calpers, in my case). It is funded by current employee contributions, employer contributions, and high historical investment gains. In times of slow/no gains, they up the contributions required, but in times of high gains (like dot com years) the employers didn't even have to contribute anything! Just think of the employer contribution as part of the salary package the employees receive. Without it, wages would just be higher and "the budget" would be the same.

And for the record, a lot of us public employers do not participate in social security so the employer doesn't pay into it and neither does the worker and therefore he won't get social security when he retires. Those that did pay into social security early in their careers before joining the public sector likely won't receive any benefits anyway because of something called the public employee windfall act that basically prevents you from receiving any social security benefits if you're getting a decent pension.

Is a hypersensitivity response that provoked bronchial constriction. It would most definetly be provoked by smoke inhalation.

I can't believe people would be upset that this man actually tries to keep himself in shape. Would you be happier if he sat on his a.. and got fat and became visibly handicapped.

I think it would be appropriate to assign him to a job that did not expose him to environmental stimuli that provoked his asthma...perhaps that is not possible for an asthmatic!