
Bart employee salaries CSV - mariusz331
https://github.com/mariusz360/bart-salaries/blob/master/salaries.csv
======
spamizbad
Wow, some of these public servants make as much money as a 19 year old college
dropout in Silicon Valley.

~~~
readme
Did you mean the high end, or the low end?

A college dropout can make a killing in Silicon Valley, if they are also: _a
talented software developer._

OTOH, some of the other dropouts might end up working as BART train operators,
who seem to make between 12 and 15k/yr, which is likely for full time, in a
city where it costs about 1/4 of that just to scrape by on a monthly basis.

It is not right to employ people at a wage that they cannot possibly subsist
on. These people all ended up as bart train operators for one reason or
another. Maybe they were lazy. Maybe they got shafted in life. Maybe they're
dumb. But does that mean they should be paid a substandard living wage? No.

Meanwhile the luckier, more industrious, or combination thereof, are making
over 10x the amount of the lowest paid workers.

Min wage needs to be raised, a lot. Look at Australia.

~~~
netcan
Did you look at these numbers? Where do you think minimum wage applies here?

~~~
readme
Yes, I actually looked quite thoroughly.

It applies in that the minimum wage is too low, so the bottom end of the
workers have an extraordinarily unfair salary, in spite of the fact that they
probably work 40+ hour weeks driving subway trains.

I have made a histogram to illustrate this problem:
[http://pastie.org/8106373](http://pastie.org/8106373)

You can see from the data that the highest paid worker makes at least 25x the
amount of the lowest paid worker.

This is not what I'd call fair. To be clear, it's not just the BART. We could
do this with salary data from any municipality or corporation in the US.

I am operating on the assumption that many of the "train operators" are full
time workers, which is not indicated in the data. I'd say it's a fairly good
bet, though.

That is easily one of the most hazardous and unpleasant jobs, yet they are
paid dirt. See, it doesn't matter how hard you work in our society. You can
dig the dirtiest hole every day, sweat, and bleed, and you will be rewarded
with a substandard wage. Instead, we reward the things that propel us forward,
which does make sense: anyone can dig a hole. The problem is that not everyone
has equal access to the means to acquire the skills which are so jealously
rewarded. Yet, they do everything right anyway, work hard, and this is what
they get. A 25x lower paying job than the highest paid executive.

We can fix this by _raising the minimum wage_ to something fair. Australia has
theirs at around $16 USD.

~~~
netcan
Sorry. I didn't mean to be rude.

Some titles have PT in them. i assume this means part time.

If there were a large number of full time workers earning around minimum wage,
I would expect to see a lot of salaries around 20k p/a. Only ~1% of total
compensations are between $17-$23k and they all have job titles that can be
found above and bell that band. About half have PT in the title and I assume
others are something else other than full time.

Anyone above that band wouldn't be impacted by an increase in minimum wage.
Anyone below that band is part time and may be earning near minimum wage, but
most probably aren't.

I don't have a problem with minimum wages. But, it don't look like an increase
would impact here anyway.

~~~
readme
I will adjust my script to incorporate PT and repost asap!

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mililani
This is why this state is in such precarious financial situations. Poorly
managed over-time, resulting in excessive salary payouts, which ultimately
accrues into pension liabilities.

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WildUtah
Wow. Lesson number one from this list is that if you want to make a boatload
working for the government, be a cop. Aside from top administrators, the top
ranks of the list are dominated by regular transit cops.

Usually the very, very generous retirement benefits drive high police
compensation. Well paid overtime helps, too.

~~~
mililani
In San Francisco, SFPD can retire with 30% of their average 3 year salary
after just 10 years on the job AND 55 years of age. Usually, this is around
100k for a 10 year veteran of the force. So, if one starts at SFPD at age 45,
one can retire with about $33k per year at 55. There is also a COLA adjustment
per year. Average life span for a male is around 76 years. The pension benefit
ALONE is worth about $700k not including the COLA adjustment.

People wonder why this state and municipalities are SCREWED, and they wonder
why several cities have filed bankruptcy or have skirted bankruptcy. This is
PART, a BIG PART, of the reason.

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stephanerangaya
It'd have been nice to anonymize this data. I know it's publicly available but
we should respect people's privacy. I don't think having people's name adds
anything interesting to this data set.

~~~
maxcan
In general, I'd agree. However, considering the collective action the union
has taken disrupting a vital service, I think they forfeit a bit of privacy in
this case. They are public servants who are holding the public hostage.

~~~
flyt
They are not "public servants" they are humans who took a job that happens to
be under a unionized collective bargaining agreement. Many of these people may
not care about the union, and are just happy to have a job. They are not in a
place to affect change in the way the union operates or negotiates and
shouldn't have anti-union stigma placed on them or be the target of public
reprisals.

Have some respect for people that just want to earn an honest salary and do
good work at a job which puts them in daily contact with the entire spectrum
of the human experience. They simply want to maintain a level of compensation
that they have negotiated for, and that, frankly, every other worker should
also be demanding from their employers, but cannot due to the erosion of union
effectiveness and trust over the last 50 years.

~~~
dennis82
They voted to strike. And yes, they assuredly are "public servants." It used
to be that in exchange for working for the public and taking a lower salary,
you'd be cushioned and shielded from recessions, in exchange for more
stability.

Now, public workers are better compensated than the private sector and still
maintain guarantees for their jobs.

So which is it? Because the way I and many other Californians see it, our
state is in such dire straits because unions have squeezed the public dry, run
up huge deficits to fund ridiculous pension plans, and haven't done anything
beyond baseline to help the People.

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bfung
Here's a google spreadsheet quickly thrown together:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsoY_yr0BJCVdHF...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsoY_yr0BJCVdHFRc0VxV2hhX1JqRk1ORnZjLXM4MkE&usp=sharing)

Pivot table is grouped by Subtitle/Job title

Chart is ordered by base salary descending, but doesn't show the lower base
salaries, so don't freak on those.

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arjn
Very interesting. How come there are a bunch of people with $0 base salary ?
Are those contractors, interns ? Also, some of those low-base employees seem
to have very high employer contributions to medical/dental/vision plans. How
does that work ?

~~~
randartie
Perhaps they're hourly.

~~~
nknighthb
I believe almost all of the employees on this list are hourly. To pick a semi-
random example from the list, a "train operator" with $60,257 in "salary" and
$55,453 in overtime is not a "salaried" employee like most of the people on HN
are used to.

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flexie
This is just mean. Why don't you put your own name and salary up there for us
to see, mariusz331?

Whether your employer is the government or a private entity and whether or not
you participate in a strike you don't deserve to have your financial data
exposed.

~~~
nknighthb
I support public employees, public employee unions, and the right of those
employees/unions to strike. I also do not believe most of these salaries and
other compensation are outrageous.

But I also support complete transparency in government. Ultimately, _we_ are
their employer, and we have a right to know how much we're paying them. I know
this will sometimes have negative consequences for the employees, but this is
a balancing of interests, and in the end, I believe we're all better served by
this.

We would be better served still, however, if we knew exactly how these numbers
came to be, because some of them are very strange. I'm guessing we could
eventually figure most of it out with sufficient research, but ideally a
subject matter expert would come forward and save us some time by explaining
it.

~~~
dantheman
Why would you support public sector unions? They face a very different dynamic
than ones faced in the private sector. Here's a good write up:
[http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-
review/article/432...](http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-
review/article/43266)

~~~
nknighthb
The parts of that article I don't believe are factually incorrect are parts I
fundamentally disagree with.

Trying to convince me public sector unions are bad by linking me to a
conservative think tank rattling off a list of things public employees fight
for/against is a bad idea. I fight for/against _the exact same things_.

So the answer to your question is, I'm a bleeding heart pinko commie bastard,
that's why. Have a glass of vodka, comrade.

~~~
tater
Thats the strategy, divide and conquer, make the private sector hate the
public sector, make the nonunion workers hate the union workers, etc. As soon
as they have enough haters to form a critical mass, the hated group gets shit
on and they repeat the process with the next group.

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usaar333
Can someone define what the headers are to actually understand what is
compensation and what are benefits private sector workers don't necessary
think about as comp (e.g. health insurance)?

I realize that: OT = overtime MDV = medical, dental, vision

But what is ER, EE, and DC?

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gadders
I think pension entitlements would be an even more interesting file. These
seem to be the expenditures that are crippling a lot of municipalities.

