5 ms·

Even though they want to use this specific person to showcase an example, I think that it's highly inconsiderate to post this fellow's name in the news article.

by laluser 10y ago

Even though they want to use this specific person to showcase an example, I think that it's highly inconsiderate to post this fellow's name in the news article. The way the article is written, it just sounds like they're making an example out of him, when in reality, he's literally just doing his job.

prostoalex 10y ago
The data is available from government agencies and aggregated on transparentcalifornia.com, which the article links to. Even if they omitted his name, the discovery process would take a casual web surfer two minutes at most. Here are the top Bay Area public sector salaries for anyone whose job title includes "janitor" http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Janitor&y= http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Janitor&... BART custodians are "system service workers" in their nomenclature http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=System+service+worker&y= http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=System+s...
- laluser 10y ago
  I'm completely aware of that. My wife is actually a school teacher so her salary is freely available online. I'm only arguing that being called out like this by name in a news article, is pretty...bogus. That's all.
- fuqted 10y ago
  Bart is consistently disgusting and a majority of their janitors make over $100k? This is what happens in a government subsidized monopoly.
  - astronautjones 10y ago
    as opposed to everyone on here that's grossly overpaid in the bay area? at least they're providing a tangible service
    - fuqted 10y ago
      Thanks for the downvote but I live in the bay area and I've worked maintenance (ie custodial). My pay with this has never broached $20 /h. I've worked terrible jobs for terrible pay. I can remember being forced to call Uber to get to these terrible jobs when BART decides they want to protest over their pay. No, this doesn't make me happy and their 'service' is sub par.
vinhboy 10y ago
Yea, I never understood why that database has names attached to it. What's the point? It seems unfair to me that teachers, or people who work in education and other, usually low paying, public service jobs gets exposed like this. If they want to embarrass people for abusing their public sector job, then we have public officials, who head these departments and ultimately responsible for the salaries, to scold. No need to name individual employees.
- vostok 10y ago
  I like that you can view people's salaries. It gives us a rare look at how much people make. I can only say that I wish all salary data was public, like it is in some European countries.
xenadu02 10y ago
This is a hit-piece designed to get people to vote against the BART bond measure, nothing more. As the BART spokesperson pointed out: he is just signing up for shifts no one else wants. Does it matter who works those hours? It costs a bit more due to overtime pay but it doesn't factor into his benefits. The higher pay is also taxed higher so the ultimate cost isn't +50%/+100% for 50/50+ hours worked.
- Johnny555 10y ago
  If there are enough empty shifts to let a single employee earn 4X his base pay, then hire more employees and stop paying so much overtime. The higher pay is also taxed higher so the ultimate cost isn't +50%/+100% for 50/50+ hours worked What does that mean? It doesn't matter how much an employee is taxed, the employee's tax rate doesn't affect how much BART pays.
  - xenadu02 10y ago
    It comes back to the state as revenue and to BART and the member cities as sales taxes. If you hire another employee are they going to want those hours or will they quit? Their benefits must also be factored in. Given he earned 4X it probably makes sense to hire at least one more full-time employee but you can't find new ones these days; housing is too expensive.
    - Johnny555 10y ago
      So maybe 10% of his salary goes to the state, and lets say that 1% of the state's budget goes to BART (it doesn't), so that's .1% of his salary. And if he spends 25% of his income on local taxable goods, and .5% of that goes back to bart, that's .125%. So about .225% of his salary makes it back to BART. Not much of a return. If BART wants to help return money to the community, they can ask for less money (taxes, bonds, fares), not use tax dollars and captive commuter fare money to pay employees 5 times a typical salary and count on some small percentage of that money to trickle down. A few months back my building hired a new janitor after their old one retired - the building manager literally had a line out of his office of people looking for the job. The Bay Area is expensive for sure, but even jobs like $50K janitorial positions still get filled.

by laluser 10y ago

prostoalex 10y ago

The data is available from government agencies and aggregated on transparentcalifornia.com, which the article links to. Even if they omitted his name, the discovery process would take a casual web surfer two minutes at most. Here are the top Bay Area public sector salaries for anyone whose job title includes "janitor" http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Janitor&y= http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Janitor&... BART custodians are "system service workers" in their nomenclature http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=System+service+worker&y= http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=System+s...

laluser 10y ago
I'm completely aware of that. My wife is actually a school teacher so her salary is freely available online. I'm only arguing that being called out like this by name in a news article, is pretty...bogus. That's all.
fuqted 10y ago
Bart is consistently disgusting and a majority of their janitors make over $100k? This is what happens in a government subsidized monopoly.
- astronautjones 10y ago
  as opposed to everyone on here that's grossly overpaid in the bay area? at least they're providing a tangible service
  - fuqted 10y ago
    Thanks for the downvote but I live in the bay area and I've worked maintenance (ie custodial). My pay with this has never broached $20 /h. I've worked terrible jobs for terrible pay. I can remember being forced to call Uber to get to these terrible jobs when BART decides they want to protest over their pay. No, this doesn't make me happy and their 'service' is sub par.

vinhboy 10y ago

Yea, I never understood why that database has names attached to it. What's the point? It seems unfair to me that teachers, or people who work in education and other, usually low paying, public service jobs gets exposed like this. If they want to embarrass people for abusing their public sector job, then we have public officials, who head these departments and ultimately responsible for the salaries, to scold. No need to name individual employees.

vostok 10y ago
I like that you can view people's salaries. It gives us a rare look at how much people make. I can only say that I wish all salary data was public, like it is in some European countries.

xenadu02 10y ago

This is a hit-piece designed to get people to vote against the BART bond measure, nothing more. As the BART spokesperson pointed out: he is just signing up for shifts no one else wants. Does it matter who works those hours? It costs a bit more due to overtime pay but it doesn't factor into his benefits. The higher pay is also taxed higher so the ultimate cost isn't +50%/+100% for 50/50+ hours worked.

Johnny555 10y ago
If there are enough empty shifts to let a single employee earn 4X his base pay, then hire more employees and stop paying so much overtime. The higher pay is also taxed higher so the ultimate cost isn't +50%/+100% for 50/50+ hours worked What does that mean? It doesn't matter how much an employee is taxed, the employee's tax rate doesn't affect how much BART pays.
- xenadu02 10y ago
  It comes back to the state as revenue and to BART and the member cities as sales taxes. If you hire another employee are they going to want those hours or will they quit? Their benefits must also be factored in. Given he earned 4X it probably makes sense to hire at least one more full-time employee but you can't find new ones these days; housing is too expensive.
  - Johnny555 10y ago
    So maybe 10% of his salary goes to the state, and lets say that 1% of the state's budget goes to BART (it doesn't), so that's .1% of his salary. And if he spends 25% of his income on local taxable goods, and .5% of that goes back to bart, that's .125%. So about .225% of his salary makes it back to BART. Not much of a return. If BART wants to help return money to the community, they can ask for less money (taxes, bonds, fares), not use tax dollars and captive commuter fare money to pay employees 5 times a typical salary and count on some small percentage of that money to trickle down. A few months back my building hired a new janitor after their old one retired - the building manager literally had a line out of his office of people looking for the job. The Bay Area is expensive for sure, but even jobs like $50K janitorial positions still get filled.