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  1. point I was making is that pension rules for uniform is much more generous (years, age) and for disability much easier–no questions asked.
    People then assume all civil service pensions are same — far far from the truth.

  2. DeLepp;

    I believe that the NYT ran those stories almost out of embarassment. In other words, their Metro coverage was becoming such an embarassment of political correctness that many folks rightly saw it as irrelevant.

  3. Pete;

    The abuses run through all the civil service unions.

    The most corrupt union of all is the UFT. The TWU is right up there with featherbedding rules. Want some examples? Here’s just a couple:

    -LIRR work crews are given an extra day’s pay when they are reassigned from an electric locomotive to a diesel. This arcane work rule once had some justification many years ago, but the TWU has refused to let it go.

    -Bus drivers who man the express buses from Staten Island to Manhattan (in the morning) are not allowed to be deployed in Manhattan for the mid-day, where they would be needed. Nope, the union requires that they go back to Staten Island, where they sit in the depot for hours playing cards. Then, in the afternoon they head back to Manhattan for the afternoon run.

  4. benson, in defence of the grey lady(which is no longer paper of record for nyc) they did break the story on the LIRR retirees out on disability while maintaining daily golf outings.

    In September, The New York Times reported that more than 90 percent of career L.I.R.R. employees retire early and apply for occupational disability pensions, three to four times the rate of other railroads. The railroad’s retirees have collected a quarter of a billion dollars in disability payments since 2000.

  5. abuses in retirements/disabilities is very concentrated in uniform services….where both political parties in albany (even more so the republicans) have given them very special treatment. Rarely refused anything for police/firefighters,etc. Seen as unpatriotic.
    I would not generalize this to the average clerical joe/jane.

  6. DIBS, that guy has been there periodically since I’ve been working at 53rd and Park, which is about 5 years now. He should be there ALL the time. It’s terrible how people hold up the train at the Park/Madison Ave end of the station. The E comes every two minutes during rush hour, so why be a dick and hold the doors?

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