
BART janitor grossed $270K in pay and benefits last year - prostoalex
http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/01/bart-janitor-grossed-270k-in-pay-and-benefits-last-year
======
cxseven
I don't envy him:

"When work crews pulled open a broken BART escalator at San Francisco's Civic
Center Station last month, they found so much human excrement in its works
they had to call a hazardous-materials team. While the sheer volume of human
waste was surprising, its presence was not. Once the stations close, the
bottom of BART station stairwells in downtown San Francisco are often a prime
location for homeless people to camp for the night or find a private place to
relieve themselves..." [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-
shuts-down...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Human-waste-shuts-down-
BART-escalators-3735981.php)

~~~
sean_patel
This is true. A very ugly situation in what used to be a world-class city. I
have seen homeless people defecating in the BART / Subway escalators.

Initial anger turned to apathy. Where would they go? There are no public
toilets as far as I can tell, in the downtown / tenderloin area. I did
volunteer work at San Quentin and Pelican Bay helping non-violent inmates
apply for jobs outside, and almost all the ones I helped in San Quentin said
they were being paroled into San Francisco. Eventually they all end up in the
Tenderloin district, sleeping on the street and relieving themselves at the
BART stations.

~~~
djf1
Here's a full list of SF public toilets:
[http://sfpublicworks.org/sites/default/files/5196-public_toi...](http://sfpublicworks.org/sites/default/files/5196-public_toilet_by_zip.pdf)

There are multiple 24 hour facilities in the downtown / tenderloin area
(94102).

------
laluser
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
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&...](http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=Janitor&y=)

BART custodians are "system service workers" in their nomenclature

[http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=System+s...](http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/search/?q=System+service+worker&y=)

~~~
fuqted
Bart is consistently disgusting and a majority of their janitors make over
$100k?

This is what happens in a government subsidized monopoly.

~~~
astronautjones
as opposed to everyone on here that's grossly overpaid in the bay area? at
least they're providing a tangible service

~~~
fuqted
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.

------
xienze
If BART is like other public sector jobs in California, his pension will be
based on some percentage of his average pay, including overtime, for his last
few years of employment. Say hello to the $200K per year retired janitor.

Yeah, California won't have a pension crisis in the coming years...

~~~
gnopgnip
Does it matter because all pensions are self funded?

~~~
prostoalex
Since when? This keeps happening every few years
[http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-schools-
pension...](http://www.latimes.com/local/education/la-me-schools-
pensions-20140521-story.html)

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sweettea
Someone figured out how to optimize their exchange of labor for money. I'm
very happy for them, and hope we can all make such great exchanges. This
fellow sounds like a real go-getter, and we need more such inspirational
people.

~~~
ayuvar
The real disappointment here is that more people aren't paid proportionally to
the amount of time they put in to their jobs.

~~~
WalterBright
People are more or less paid for what they produce, how much time they spend
at it is immaterial. (Despite ostensibly being paid by the hour, the rate is
based on the expected value they'll produce in that time.) The idea of pay for
time is the Labor Theory of Value, and is discredited.

------
hackuser
If you read that a CEO managed to accumulate $220K extra what would you think?
Business as usual? Not worth a headline? How about $2.5 million? A $25 million
golden parachute?

What about an attorney or a top salesperson pocketing a little extra?

I don't support corruption and it should be put to a stop, but let's focus our
attention on the real money and the powerful.

~~~
msane
Well the CEO isn't being paid with public funds, first of all.

~~~
ProxCoques
Not directly paid, but certainly indirectly paid using billions of dollars of
tax-payers money in the form of corporate welfare payments and fiscal policies
designed to boost profits. Tax breaks and various direct and indirect
subsidies by government allow his company to make the profits that allow him
to be paid as much as he is.

This means that anyone who believes there is a free market economy operating
anywhere in the world is gravely mistaken. Arguably, the case of this janitor
making lots of money is really not about public ownership at all. The public
(via the government) effectively support both private and public sectors
almost equally in a lot of cases.

Here's the situation in the UK at least:

[http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2015/07/SPER...](http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/wp-
content/uploads/2015/07/SPERI-Paper-24-The-British-Corporate-Welfare-
State.pdf)

------
cyanbane
Don't hate the player, hate the game. I hope Zhang gets to keep every penny
and I hope SF comes up with a way better manage their expenditures.

~~~
Johnny555
BART is not owned or managed by the city of San Francisco, it's managed by a 9
member elected board - SF holds 2 seats (plus one seat covers some SF and some
East Bay areas)

While SF may have a lot of faults, SF can't be blamed for BART's problems.

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galago
Yeah, not information in the article about his hours. I'm assuming he just
worked every overtime hour possible, which is some crazy sacrifice. When I
lived in Oregon I remember reading about a 911 dispatcher who was one of the
highest paid public employees, but he also was regularly working 80+hr weeks--
7 days a week for months at a time. If there's a problem its a management
issue.

~~~
stretchwithme
Does management decide who gets the overtime at BART? Or is the union packing
the end of his career with overtime so he walks away with a massive pension?

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eachro
This article doesn't give us enough information. How many hours overtime did
he work? How many hours a week? How much pay gets doled out to janitors? Etc.

~~~
NhanH
Working 100 hours week mean that he's earning at the same rate of someone
working 40 hours/week for 100k. Realistically unless the job is dangerous
(which it could very well be, I don't know), I think it works out to be a good
deal.

------
joshka
The exact numbers are found at:
[http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2015/san-
francisco...](http://transparentcalifornia.com/salaries/2015/san-francisco-
bay-area-rapid-transit-district/liang-zhao-zhang/)

------
patmcguire
If he's making four times his base pay as a janitor, 1x of that is base pay,
and 3x is overtime. If that 3x is time and a half, he's working 2x his normal
hours on top of his normal hours.

Is this guy working 120 hours a week? Has to be more that time and a half
overtime, 120 hours is not doable over a year.

~~~
kamaal
>>120 hours is not doable over a year.

Why do you think so?

Just because some of us can't others can't?

This is a bit like expressing surprise over people running miles everyday. It
looks impossible until you actually start doing it.

~~~
patmcguire
That's 17 hours a day, every day without breaks. If he took a day off or
worked only 14 hours he's got to make that up. It's more than two-thirds of
the time in a year on the job. Not conscious time, total time.

Looks like he did do it, but it's at the edge of physical possibility. As you
get up there every hour is a much larger chunk of your available time. 114-120
is a lot more than 100.

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aphextron
Incredible mismanagement on the side of BART for allowing this to happen. I'm
certain they could find all the funding they need for upgrades by cutting the
waste.

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k__
> worked an average of 114 hours a week

lol, I'm not even awake 114h a week.

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billconan
And Bart is still pretty dirty.

