[M II A II R II K]

Union: Six-figure workers a 'benefit to TTC'


March 31, 2010

By DON PEAT

Read More: http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/03/31/13429776.html

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More than 200 new people got on board the Red Rocket’s $100,000 salary train last year. The number of employees making $100,000 or more at the TTC jumped to 725 in 2009 from about 500 in 2008. Those 100K-plus salaries totalled up to more than $82 million, up from $62 million last year. Top earners at the TTC included chief general manager Gary Webster who earned $280,037, operations general manager Rick Cornacchia at $241,128 and senior project engineer James Sinikas at $234,016.

- “The people who exceed the $100,000 mark are people who are actually a benefit to the TTC, who actually reduce costs for the TTC by providing their overtime services,†Kinnear said. “It’s actually a saving to the TTC to have these people providing a service on call, basically.†Kinnear blamed the TTC’s inability to ensure subway trains go into and out of service on time as another reason for high overtime. “We have continuously late-ins, in and out of service,†he said. “We negotiated back in 2005 a provision for double time when there was forced overtime and that’s what that is.â€

- “What we were trying to do was encourage the TTC to ensure that they adhere to the scheduling of their own service. They have been negligent in doing that and their overtime costs continue to increase year after year in the system because they are unable to provide service that reflects their own schedules.†As for the increase in non-union members at the TTC making more than $100,000, the tough-talking union leader decided not to weigh in. “I’ll leave it to the media to make comment on that,†Kinnear said. TTC chairman Adam Giambrone said overtime isn’t “dramatically up†for the authority.

- He argued that overtime is an effective management tool when used properly and that while at some point it does make sense to hire more staff, at some point it makes sense to pay existing staff overtime. TTC spokesman Danny Nicholson stressed that if the Sunshine list was adjusted for inflation, only 74 employees would be on the 2009 list, up from the original 24 on the list back in 1996. City Councillor Doug Holyday sighed at what appears to be a runaway gravy train.

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[PinkLucy]

The people who exceed the $100,000 mark are people who are actually a benefit to the TTC,

So does this mean that there are those below the mark who are not a benefit???

 

[Chuck]

“[The TTC] has been negligent...because they are unable to provide service that reflects their own schedules.â€

What a jerk! It is none other than the unionized employees themselves that dispatch, drive, and maintain the vehicles.

 

[Agram]

What a jerk! It is none other than the unionized employees themselves that dispatch, drive, and maintain the vehicles.

So what are you saying that a dispatcher located in some corner of a carhouse is creating overtime for drivers out of his goodwill toward his fellow union brothers and sisters? Before you answer that question Chuck I just wanty to let you know that scheduling of trains that go into service has nothing to do with union dispatchers,drivers or mechanics. Schediling is made by staff schedulers not by union ones, all trains leaving the yards go out on a very tight schedule which must be followed to the second, if a train is late there are consequences but I will leave that for another time. Trains are also scheduled to leave service at a scheduled time and due to delays on the main line sometimes trains are late going in by as much as 15-30 minutes or even longer. For every minute the train is late the drivers get double time, so a 30 minute delay and they get 1 hour overtime.....same can be used in streetcars and buses

 

[Mapleson]

$100,000 isn't want it used to be. In 2005, a Toronto truck driver earned between $14.00 and $21.50 ($17.90 avg). Taking the high end at 35 hours per week and 52 weeks per year, that's $39,130 without overtime. Let's assume the price point between more staff and overtime is 15 hours at 15 time (over 50 weeks, 2 week vacation) that's $24187.50 more. So a 50-hour week in 2005 meant $63,317.50. So an hourly wage of $33.95 with the previous conditions means you make the list.

I can think of a lot of people at the TTC that I'd apply that wage fairly to. Did anyone notice that while over $22.5m in new salaries were added to this list (presumably many of them where uncounted in the $90k range) the total salary only went up $20m? So an average drop of $5000. Not exactly what I'd call a gravy train.

I'd like to see this number broken into two catagories with total salaries for both. Those over $100k current money and those over $100k 1996 money.

 

[Chuck]

What a jerk! It is none other than the unionized employees themselves that dispatch, drive, and maintain the vehicles.

So what are you saying that a dispatcher located in some corner of a carhouse is creating overtime for drivers out of his goodwill toward his fellow union brothers and sisters? Before you answer that question Chuck I just wanty to let you know that scheduling of trains that go into service has nothing to do with union dispatchers,drivers or mechanics. Schediling is made by staff schedulers not by union ones, all trains leaving the yards go out on a very tight schedule which must be followed to the second, if a train is late there are consequences but I will leave that for another time. Trains are also scheduled to leave service at a scheduled time and due to delays on the main line sometimes trains are late going in by as much as 15-30 minutes or even longer. For every minute the train is late the drivers get double time, so a 30 minute delay and they get 1 hour overtime.....same can be used in streetcars and buses

No, what I'm saying is that when you remove unforeseen circumstances such as weather and passenger delays, scheduling has as much to do with unionized employees as it does non unionized employees because they all have a part to play.

 

[doady]

Vehicles that are off schedule are usually the fault of passengers loads, traffic delays, and of course bad schedules that don't accurately represent the real travel times. Bob Kinnear is an ass but he right: lack of adherance to the schedule is usually not the fault of unionized TTC employees.

 

[Mapleson]

But it's the us vs them attitude that at least in part keeps things from working better. The non-union staff making the schedules should be meeting with the union operators to see how the abstract matches reality. With the evolution of the NextBus system, they can almost get away with replacing bus driver knowledge with GPS data, but even then you can't beat day-to-day operational experience for predictability.

 

[Agram]

So how many of you here are going to the meeting this Sunday? Its your chance to talk 1 on 1 with Mr Kinnear and front line workers http://wemovetoronto.ca/