LIRR/MTA loses the Moral High Ground

Been busy grading papers, submitting grades, and, these past few days, an out-of-town business excursion.

The Long Island Railroad has undergone significant changes from the 1920's, when arose the famous case of Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad, a Cardozo opinion known to law students in every law school torts classes in America.  Instead of a private enterprise, the LIRR is now a division of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority.  Long Island is very dependent upon the LIRR operations for its economic health.  For a number of years, I was a daily LIRR commuter; I still use it from time to time (including yesterday, but don't get me started on that mostly frustrating overnight excursion to Harrisburg and back to Penn Station and back home via LIRR).

As mentioned in the posting of 31 July 2013, there was union complicity in a massive Railroad Retirement Board disability pension scheme.  The unions have given the public an impression of cupidity and insolence.  The LIRR's unions have set a 20 July strike deadline.  And, until a few days ago, the LIRR/MTA have commanded the moral high ground in this dispute (morality being a relative value in that Class D minor league that entails the MTA, the LIRR, and the labor unions having contracts with them).

Helena Williams had been President of the LIRR, and, as one who actually took the LIRR commute on an almost daily basis, understood the concerns of the commuters.  She did take some steps to reform the old entrenched LIRR culture.

But then, Tom Prendergast took the helm of the MTA.  Prendergast has an engineering and technical background (as distinct from Williams's background as a labor lawyer).  Prendergast's vision is technical upgrades, and therefore wants engineering and technical types, and so, Williams was pink-slipped and replaced by Patrick Nowakowski, who does have a track record overseeing commuter rail infrastructure upgrades in Philadelphia and Washington.

Well now, it turns out that Williams struck a deal with LIRR and MTA.  She is still in the LIRR's employ as a consultant, still drawing a salary, and, in such a posture, will soon qualify for a full pension -- all in return for her to not bring a lawsuit against LIRR/MTA for gender discrimination.

Is Williams playing the gender card?  Obviously yes.  Was she given disparately poor treatment on account of her gender?  Could very well be.  If it were just Williams and the MTA/LIRR establishment, then all would be evenly matched and the whole thing would not be much concern to anyone else.

But because of this labor contract negotiation, the LIRR/MTA has placed itself into a "can't win" position.  If LIRR is so financially strapped that they just cannot afford to raise the salaries and benefits of the rank-and-file workforce, then how were they able to come up with Helena's lagniappe?  And why would they settle the dispute so quickly and quietly if there were no basis for Helena's implied claim of gender discrimination?

Governor Andrew Cuomo has been saying that he has no intention of insinuating himself into the LIRR's labor dispute.  It must be remembered that when Andy's father, Mario, was Governor, he did step in to pressure the MTA to settle the threatened rail strike. 

Until a few days ago, LIRR/MTA could claim the moral high ground.  Now, that territory is occupied by neither.  Not that I have any great admiration for Andy Cuomo, but he now has an opportunity to claim the moral high ground abandoned by the MTA/LIRR.

Recoupment at a Price

Following a stint in the United States Marine Corps, Harry E. Findel, following in his father's footsteps, found civilian employment with the Long Island Railroad, where he served as an engineer.  Nothing I have found even suggests that either his military or civilian service were anything other than honorable.

Following retirement, Harry and his wife Shirley moved to Florida.

Harry died on September 18, 2013.  And then, Shirley, in her grief as she strived to deal with the adjustments necessitated by her new condition of widowhood, received a disconcerting letter from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the parent organization of the LIRR.  The letter informed Shirley that a clerical error was made in 1995, resulting in Harry's receiving a monthly $124.80 per month more than he should have been paid, and will she please remit the accumulated $26,707.20 discrepancy back to the MTA (which the MTA will be deign to extend the courtesy of allowing such repayments through convenient deductions from her own widow's pension payments).

Comparing the numbers on her reduced pension check with her living expenses, Shirley saw that the arithmetic would not work for her, and so, she has lawyered up and is contesting the MTA's determination.

The MTA is claiming that it has the fiduciary duty to recoup the pension payments.

And, quite frankly, they are correct.  And they should get the recoupment.

But this recoupment, even if they recoup every penny, will come at a price.

As mentioned in the posting of 31 July 2013, there was a big Railroad Retirement Board disability pension fraud scandal involving LIRR employees.  The last of the defendants have been sentenced.  Some got some hard time in the pokey, but former LIRR conductor Christopher Parlante, who gave a great operatic performance as he sang from the witness stand, was spared the slammer for his own fraud, and ORDERED to repay his ill-gotten gain of almost $295,000 at the rate of $25 per month.  Doing the arithmetic, he should have it all cleared in less than a thousand years.

The comparison between Parlante and Shirley Findel is not lost on the widow or her attorney.  And the news media have not missed that cruel irony either.  Again, all signals indicate that Harry Findel served honorably, and he does not seem to have been implicated in this disability retirement scandal.

The LIRR and MTA have been made into monkeys by the whole affair, as has the union, which, as noted in the 31 July 2014 posting, gave free office space to Marie Baran, the "consultant" who advised the LIRR retirees how to game the system to claim false disability from the RRB.

The LIRR is now at a labor contract impasse with its unions, who now threaten to strike in July if the impasse is not resolved.  I do not know how this one will play out, but it would not be surprising in the least if this Parlante-Findel comparison is somehow insinuated into the story line.

This Business Stuff

Marie Baran is one of the remaining defendants in a Long Island Railroad pension fraud scheme (some of the other defendants having taken plea agreements).  Her testimony at her trial was reported in today's Newsday.  Marie had been the District Office manager for the Railroad Retirement Board, and, almost immediately upon her retirement from that Federal agency, set up shop in the free office space provided in the LIRR workers' union headquarters as a consultant to advise LIRR employees how to put in the papers to get their disability pensions and retire early.  Her own husband is an ex-LIRR worker on disability.  She charged the LIRR workers she advised $1,200 each as a consulting fee.

Marie admitted to amending her income tax return to reflect more than $50,000 additional income after she received a visit from the FBI.  She claimed that she insisted on cash payments because she didn't want to have to worry about bounced checks, and that hiding income was the furthest thing from her mind. 

She further claimed that the $50,000 + underreported from her initial return was an honest mistake.  " 'I wasn't very good at this business stuff,' she testified. 'I didn't keep records the first year. When I did my taxes, I just winged it.'"

I wasn't there; I only know what I read in Newsday.  The judge and jury are best postured to evaluate the testimony of the witnesses, and I do not now purport to second-guess them.  Nevertheless, I shall exercise my First Amendment rights and proffer my personal opinion:

Marie, if you held the union members in such high regard as you claimed (hey, they did, after all, give you some rent-free office digs), why couldn't you trust them to write good checks to you?  And Marie, you were not a GS-5 automaton, you were the freakin' District Office Manager of the RRB's Long Island Office!  This "business stuff" couldn't have been all that strange to you!  In fact, you couldn't have lasted more than a few weeks as District Office Manager if you were totally clueless about "this business stuff!"

I'm sure that the GS-3s, GS-4s and GS-5's I had occasion to supervise during my Federal employment years (who, notwithstanding their low scope of authority, job functions and salaries, were certainly not automatons) would not have missed the $50K+ discrepancy you claimed was an innocent error.  They understood "this business stuff!"

Marie, I think that you now stand a good chance of getting some rent-free housing from the Federal government!  In a Big House!

Experience Keeps a Dear School

I have not (yet) accessed an actual copy of Poor Richard's Almanack, published by Benjamin Franklin, but one of the many famous aphorisms from Franklin's annual tomes goes to the effect that "Experience keeps a dear school, but a fool will learn in no other."

But for all of the fools who pay the high tuition fees to learn in the School of Experience, there are always some who don't learn the lessons.

Such as the shmucks at New Jersey Transit.

Despite multiple emphatic predictions from the various weather wonks (plural), the NJT folks insisted on parking their rail equipment (commonly known as "trains") in the Meadowlands yard at Kearny to wait out Hurricane Sandy.  And so, all of those brand new locomotives and rail cars got soaked with the filthy saline solution constituting the storm surge.

This in and of itself is not remarkable.  But the Long Island Railroad and the Metro North Railroad did take the weather predictions seriously, and did move their equipment away from the low-lying areas.

And over at the other end of the NJT, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority actually did learn from its expensive lesson last year with Hurricane Irene.  For those who are unfamiliar, assuming that the rails are not flooded out and that the equipment is in fact running, one can, as I have done on a few occasions, ride NJT from New York to Trenton and then catch a SEPTA train from Trenton to Philadelphia, and vice-versa.  Some SEPTA rail cars parked at the Trenton station during Hurricane Irene got soaked when the Assunpink Creek, which flows by the tracks at the Trenton station, overflowed.

[It is parenthetically noted that much of the railroad right of way between Trenton and Princeton Junction is in low-lying flood-prone territory, and indeed, I have over the years been delayed on more than one Washington to New York Amtrak train on account of the surfeit of hydrogen hydroxide on and around the rails.].  Ironically, when Hurricane Irene hit last year, it was NJT that moved its cars from Trenton.

This year, the SEPTA people were determined to not make the same mistake, and moved their equipment before Sandy came.

Given the enormity of the storm, I would give the LIRR a B-minus in its performance during Hurricane Sandy, a tremendous improvement over their D-minus to F grades which have been typical over the years.  LIRR thought about recovery.  LIRR did not have any significantly damaged equipment on account of Sandy.  And LIRR has recovered as best it can; the tunnels under the East River are the property of Amtrak, upon whom LIRR must unfortunately depend for tunnel maintenance and accessibility.  Is this just a fluke, or is LIRR really beginning to understand the lessons which are part of the curriculum of the School of Experience? 

Railroad Was Not Running

I haven't posted in a while because (A) have been occupied with professional things, and a death in the extended family; and (B) have had nothing to say that had not already been more eloquently stated elsewhere, including and especially about the elections.

Though running is a regular part of my physical workout, I have not run competitively for 20+ years. Though I have run distances well in excess of 20 miles, I personally have never had any desire to run in a marathon.

Nevertheless, I am all in favor of public marathon events. They give a positive public spin to physical fitness, stimulate economic activity, keep many young people occupied and out of trouble, and push many a negative story off from the front pages of the pulp tabloids.

Today was the New York City Marathon. I did not attend, but understand that it went off quite well. The weather was certainly good for it. My congratulations go to all who participated!

The main problem with the NYC Marathon is that it ties up traffic. Specifically, the Verrazano Bridge is closed until 3 PM. One year this was problematic for us because my parents were visiting us, and they had planned to leave Sunday morning. We convinced them to stay until the next day. Such traffic perturbations are part and parcel of Marathon events, but if they only occur once or twice a year it is not such a bad thing.

This year, however, another monkey wrench was thrown into the works by the shmucks at the Long Island Railroad. The LIRR is finishing its replacement of its 90-year-old switching technology, and the train service during this weekend has been very, very limited. Per my information, travel into New York City from Long Island has been an absolute mess, and the LIRR situation exacerbated the usual problems inherent in holding the Marathon.

It would seem to me that the LIRR people should have known that this weekend was the Marathon (being that the date was known over a year ago).

The LIRR is not known for its fine management of its trains. The riders, of which I was once a regular but now am only an occasional, do not hold the railroad in high esteem, and have no reason to do so. The LIRR is notorious for communicating misinformation to the public, sometimes intentionally so. Every LIRR rider has stories about this; I shall not now get started with mine.

To plan what amounts to a major shutdown on the weekend of the NYC Marathon is emblematic of the Long Island Rail Road and its public-be-damned institutional attitude.