Didn't realize driving trains gets you over 200 k

[Le Gaucher]

No wonder despite the raise in ticket prices ..NJ transit sucks ass

http://www.nj.com/traffic/index.ssf/2018/06/who_were_nj_transits_top_overtime_earners_in_2017.html

NJ Transit spent $165.9 million on overtime in 2017, an increase of $14.6 million over 2016.

For some transit employees, the overtime significantly increased their paycheck.

Almost 2,500 employees individually earned at least $25,000 in overtime, according to NJ Transit salary records obtained through an Open Public Records Act request.

More than 9,400 employees took home some form of overtime with the smallest overtime check totaling $5.58. Of the top 25 overtime earners last year, eight employees made over $100,000 in overtime. Overtime for eleven employees was higher than their base salary.

Using overtime is a common practice in the transit industry to avoid having to provide benefits to new additional full-time employees, said Nancy Snyder, an NJ Transit spokeswoman.

[thucythucy]

1. Considering an engineer on a train is responsible for the safety of hundreds

or even thousands of lives, it seems quite reasonable to me.

How much money do airline pilots earn?

Or brain surgeons?

You want to pay big bucks to people with that kind of life and death responsibility, with all the stress that entails, in order to attract the best and the brightest.

The fact that overtime is such an issue indicates to me that the authority is understaffed. Which makes sense considering how we've been underfunding mass transit now for decades. Like the spokeswoman said, it's a cost saving measure, one that potentially compromises the safety of passengers.

I'd like to see mass transit here given the same priority (and funding) it gets in Europe. Every time I come back from an EU country and have to ride American mass transit, I feel like I'm in some Third World country.