How Detroit People Mover workers tripled their salaries

This is why we can’t have anything nice!!!

Brandon Patterson, Detroit Free Press Published 3:27 p.m. ET April 10, 2018

“The highest-paid employee of the Detroit People Mover last year was a maintenance worker who earned $174,602 — more than triple base salary — thanks to substantial overtime, according to records obtained by a conservative newsletter.
Here's what the newsletter found:

• The highest-earning employee, an "electronic technician II," made $174,602 — $117,382 more than the employee's base salary of $57,220.
• Three of the four maintenance shift supervisors took home six figures while having an annual base salary of $61,131: one made $105,456; another, $135,395; the third, $161,368.
• Four people with the title "mechanical technician" also made significantly more than their base salary of $46,404, with two earning six-figure amounts — $111,182 and the other $105,109 — and two just shy of 100,000, making $94,322 and $95,184.
• Two "system control operators" earned $102,729 and $100,962, while having base salaries of $53,144.

By comparison, the People Mover's general manager made $119,565”.

Here, in case anyone wants to read all about it....

https://www.freep.com/story/news/loc...ver/502915002/

Are these workers being accused of not working the hours they were paid for? If not, then I'd say this is on management for not doing a better job in filling the open maintenance positions.

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Originally Posted by Johnnny5

Are these workers being accused of not working the hours they were paid for? If not, then I'd say this is on management for not doing a better job in filling the open maintenance positions.

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Give them a break. Didn't you read the article? They are SEEKING them!

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She said there are 12 vacancies in the various divisions in which individuals earned more than their base salary and they're seeking to fill them.

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What else can they be expected to do?

The reporter on the other hand lets that comment go and files the story? No challenge? Just 'seeking', and a free pass from the Free Press writer and editor? How about at least a comment on just how long they've been 'seeking'? Are there obstacles to 'finding'? What are they?

An add flashed across my screen asking me to subscribe for 99 cents a week. For a fraction of second, I thought about how that would be a reasonable amount to pay to support local journalism. Then I read the article. I was seeking journalism, but I did not find it.

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Originally Posted by Johnnny5

Are these workers being accused of not working the hours they were paid for? If not, then I'd say this is on management for not doing a better job in filling the open maintenance positions.

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Well, we don't know their over time rate. But if it's time and half then the first guy would need to work around 50 hours of OT a week, every week.

Unless the OT rate is enormous or it's an "on-call" situation where they come to work for an hour and get paid for a minimum of four, it does not seem like they worked that many hours.

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Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

Give them a break. Didn't you read the article? They are SEEKING them!


What else can they be expected to do?

The reporter on the other hand lets that comment go and files the story? No challenge? Just 'seeking', and a free pass from the Free Press writer and editor? How about at least a comment on just how long they've been 'seeking'? Are there obstacles to 'finding'? What are they?

An add flashed across my screen asking me to subscribe for 99 cents a week. For a fraction of second, I thought about how that would be a reasonable amount to pay to support local journalism. Then I read the article. I was seeking journalism, but I did not find it.

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My apologies if you're being sarcastic, but of course I read the article. All it stated was the salaries and actual yearly pay for the workers and the stated reason given for the wide difference. It did mention that they were "Seeking" more workers, but with that much overtime being doled out apparently someone is doing an incredibly lousy job of it.

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Originally Posted by Shai_Hulud

Well, we don't know their over time rate. But if it's time and half then the first guy would need to work around 50 hours of OT a week, every week.

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Originally Posted by Shai_Hulud

Unless the OT rate is enormous or it's an "on-call" situation where they come to work for an hour and get paid for a minimum of four, it does not seem like they worked that many hours.

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I'm friends with a few union electricians and it's not unheard of for them to make more in overtime in a busy week than they do from their 40 [[Especially now when there is such a huge demand for skilled workers). I'm not saying that's what is happening with the People Movers workers, but a news article that just states pay levels and then leaves everyone reading it to make their own assumptions isn't really much of a news article. It's basically implying that something nefarious is going on because these guys made a lot of money, but no one bothered to find out what is actually going on before they published it.

.......and those paychecks are different HOW from the UAW folks often working 12 hr shifts almost all week, every week for suppliers, etc.
Hell even the temps get something like $12.50 an hour throwing steel,
pulling down roughly a grand a week , for un-skilled off the street labor.
In fact the temps get forced to do overtime, coerced, leveraged.

The whole article seemed like one huge non-issue to me. If there was a point, I missed it.

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Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

The reporter on the other hand lets that comment go and files the story? No challenge? Just 'seeking', and a free pass from the Free Press writer and editor? How about at least a comment on just how long they've been 'seeking'? Are there obstacles to 'finding'? What are they?

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Not only that, but the entire article is just rehashed info from a different article. The Free Press spent 10 minutes copying and pasting and rewriting some bits.

The original Michigan Capitol Confidential article either didn't ask or asked but didn't include it in the article. They have a pretty strong angle though, so the Free Press following the issue up more deeply would have been beneficial. But at least the Free Press article doesn't call it a monorail. :p


The People Mover said that it was from overtime and leave-time payouts. Maybe they changed their benefits policies which forced vacation time hoarders to cash it out. And they don't have a huge staff so missing 12 positions could have a big effect on overtime. I also know that a few years ago the city [[iirc it was the city) cut off their funding [[they've since restored it) which sent the People Mover into a crisis and they had to lay off a ton of people. The 12 unfilled positions might be from that. We also don't know if this is something that happens every year of it's only happened this year. We also don't know if the base salaries are high or low.

So unfortunately because of the bad journalism we really have no idea whether this is reasonable or if it's the result of bad management. We can figure that it's not corruption though because the decision-makers aren't the ones making the money.

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Originally Posted by Honky Tonk

The whole article seemed like one huge non-issue to me. If there was a point, I missed it.

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The point was for the author to get clicks [[and associated ad revenue) from writing a story that implies something nefarious is going on, when in fact there is no real evidence to that fact. Welcome to the 21st century journalism of the Freep/DetNews.

If the author had in fact dug deeper, facts come out that turn 99% of these stories into a “nothing was done wrong” article. Of course a “nothing was done wrong” story doesn’t generate clicks, so what incentive is there for the author to dig deeper? If the author is lazy, doesn’t ask the next question, and just churns out the story, some money is made on the clicks. Why ask the next question if you probably don’t want to know the answer? Ignorance is bliss.

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Originally Posted by Atticus

The point was for the author to get clicks [[and associated ad revenue) from writing a story that implies something nefarious is going on, when in fact there is no real evidence to that fact. Welcome to the 21st century journalism of the Freep/DetNews.

If the author had in fact dug deeper, facts come out that turn 99% of these stories into a “nothing was done wrong” article. Of course a “nothing was done wrong” story doesn’t generate clicks, so what incentive is there for the author to dig deeper? If the author is lazy, doesn’t ask the next question, and just churns out the story, some money is made on the clicks. Why ask the next question if you probably don’t want to know the answer? Ignorance is bliss.

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I guess I did get the point then. Sad, today's "reporters" are becoming merely click generators.

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Originally Posted by Jason

...snip...We can figure that it's not corruption though because the decision-makers aren't the ones making the money.

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Yes. But too bad. Corruption is preferable to incompetence.

So Detroit People Mover workers are getting more than the Detroit Police Force!!! Somethings is not right at the City-County Building $$$$$$.

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Originally Posted by Atticus

The point was for the author to get clicks [[and associated ad revenue) from writing a story that implies something nefarious is going on, when in fact there is no real evidence to that fact. Welcome to the 21st century journalism of the Freep/DetNews.

If the author had in fact dug deeper, facts come out that turn 99% of these stories into a “nothing was done wrong” article. Of course a “nothing was done wrong” story doesn’t generate clicks, so what incentive is there for the author to dig deeper? If the author is lazy, doesn’t ask the next question, and just churns out the story, some money is made on the clicks. Why ask the next question if you probably don’t want to know the answer? Ignorance is bliss.

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I agree. Like all this business about collusion between Russia and President Trump in the election, it all sounds reprehensible and criminal on the surface but when we get underneath and see the truth we find out it’s all just lies and “fake news”

You can say what you will about how things are reported, but the guilty pleas are an inescapable fact.

Papadopoulos for trying to get damaging information about Clinton from the Russian government [[https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...indings-244318).

Flynn for lying to the FBI about his illegal contacts with Russian ambassadors [[https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...-guilty-274349).


Richard Pinedo plead guilty to selling stolen identities to Russians who used them as part of their election interference. A bunch of Russians have been indicted for specific election interference activities, but they're Russians so they're outside of our jurisdiction.


Then there's the Paul Manafort circle of people. Manafort was Trump's campaign manager in the summer and fall of 2016, and did other work with the campaign earlier in 2016. Gates also worked for the campaign and for Manafort. afaik nothing with them is proven related to Russian collusion, but their day job is literally colluding with Russia to establish and maintain a Russian puppet government in Ukraine, so the speculation is not unreasonable.

Rick Gates plead guilty for failing to register as an agent of a foreign government, as well as money laundering and tax fraud in relation to hiding the money he got from doing that work [[https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...charges-423403). Alex van der Zwaan has also plead guilty to his involvement in that work. Manafort has been indicted on all that and more but has not plead guilty.

So to pull this back to Detroit and the People Mover...

The employees here are not to blame. They are probably working a lot of hours, and getting compensated per their Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Real problems here are:
1) PM can't seem to hire people to fill positions
2) Management doesn't [[seem to) react when they noticed [[if they did) that they had employees getting triple their base salary
3) The labor agreement probably makes a bad situation worse
4) The labor agreement is too favourable to labor.

Not saying these are true, just that they are where to look for trouble.

I don't blame the employees. I blame management. Lets give them the benefit of the doubt. They can't hire for some reason. OK. So you have to work these folks more than you want.

So what gets them to TRIPLE base wages?

To get to triple base wages with basic time and 1/2, you'd have to work more 40 hours of overtime. 40 hours base + 50 hours OT = 40+[[50*1.5) = 115 hours of payment per week [[which is just a little under triple pay).

Is it really possible that these workers worked 50+ hours of overtime each and every week of the year? Slim chance.

They probably are working far fewer hours, but the contract provides pay for hours not worked. Guaranteed shift minimum hours. Overtime trip lines at less than 8 hours per day, or for working any hours on weekends. Probably some double, trip, or quad payment per hour paid. And I'll bet a lot of hours paid, but not worked.

Work rules, folks. And somehow the City signed the agreement. No surprise here, since labor unions are big donors to Democrats, and Democrats run Detroit, so they happily agree to contracts that give disproportionate benefits to workers.

Again, this is NOT the fault of the individual employees, but of management asleep at the wheel -- or effectively purchased by unions.

Sure, I'm quite anti-union. Guilty. But don't let that distract you from wondering exactly how a worker can get triple their base pay without putting in about 100 hours a week every week.

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Originally Posted by Wesley Mouch

So to pull this back to Detroit and the People Mover...

The employees here are not to blame. They are probably working a lot of hours, and getting compensated per their Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Real problems here are:
1) PM can't seem to hire people to fill positions
2) Management doesn't [[seem to) react when they noticed [[if they did) that they had employees getting triple their base salary
3) The labor agreement probably makes a bad situation worse
4) The labor agreement is too favourable to labor.

Not saying these are true, just that they are where to look for trouble.

I don't blame the employees. I blame management. Lets give them the benefit of the doubt. They can't hire for some reason. OK. So you have to work these folks more than you want.

So what gets them to TRIPLE base wages?

To get to triple base wages with basic time and 1/2, you'd have to work more 40 hours of overtime. 40 hours base + 50 hours OT = 40+[[50*1.5) = 115 hours of payment per week [[which is just a little under triple pay).

Is it really possible that these workers worked 50+ hours of overtime each and every week of the year? Slim chance.

They probably are working far fewer hours, but the contract provides pay for hours not worked. Guaranteed shift minimum hours. Overtime trip lines at less than 8 hours per day, or for working any hours on weekends. Probably some double, trip, or quad payment per hour paid. And I'll bet a lot of hours paid, but not worked.

Work rules, folks. And somehow the City signed the agreement. No surprise here, since labor unions are big donors to Democrats, and Democrats run Detroit, so they happily agree to contracts that give disproportionate benefits to workers.

Again, this is NOT the fault of the individual employees, but of management asleep at the wheel -- or effectively purchased by unions.

Sure, I'm quite anti-union. Guilty. But don't let that distract you from wondering exactly how a worker can get triple their base pay without putting in about 100 hours a week every week.

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Possibly, though this is a scenario you see happen a lot in government work. If you really want to see the root of the issue [[and you probably won't like the answer), first you have to ask why so much overtime is needed. Two answers:

1- The workers are fudging the need for OT. This is not as likely, as almost all local government agencies are very strapped for cash, and OT abuse is one of the first things investigated to see if some costs can be saved.

2- There aren't enough workers to do the work on straight time, so they need to pay the workers you do have insane OT amounts to get the job done.

Given that the cause is likely #2, the next question is why doesn't the PM have enough straight time workers such that they don't have to pay out a bunch of OT?

Likely solution A- The government can't hire enough qualified people because the base pay rate is too low. You see this a lot in the government, especially when the economy is good. Why would a worker want to work for the government, when they can earn a lot more $ in the private sector? The benefit difference isn’t what it used to be, and frankly public sector salaries [[for non-executives) don’t keep pace with inflation.

Likely solution B- The agency is capped on how many employees they can hire. Almost any local government is looking to reduce the number of employees it has, because the general public sentiment is that ALL government workers are lazy, stupid, [[insert bad adjective). Problem is that most of the “fat” was trimmed long ago, and the staff left now is pretty bare bones. Despite that, most agencies have been taking the approach of reducing the rank numbers of government employees. At some point the government doesn’t have enough people to do the work necessary at straight time, hence the need for lots of OT.

In this case, it could be either A or B, or a combination thereof. Unfortunately the solutions to A and B are either increase the size of government, or pay government workers more. Good luck on convincing elected officials to do that. So more OT it is....

What could possibly be going wrong with the People Mover that requires constant repairs and maintenance by a large group of people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year??? What systems are breaking down EVERY DAY??

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Originally Posted by CassTechGrad

What could possibly be going wrong with the People Mover that requires constant repairs and maintenance by a large group of people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year??? What systems are breaking down EVERY DAY??

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You have to do preventative maintenance to make sure it doesn't break down. The system has many moving and electrical parts, many things to be watched. The system would be always down if you waited for failure before you did any maintenance.

Another thing to factor is that they can only do maintenance on the trains when the trains are out of service. The trains are in service practically all day long. It runs 6:30-12:00 Monday-Thursday, 6:30-2:00 AM Friday, 9-2:00 AM Saturday, and noon to midnight on Sunday. I'm sure there are other things that need doing during the day, but they can only work on most things during weird hours. That might affect what counts as overtime and extra pay. The limited/weird working hours might be compounded by being short staffed.

Here's the article about how when the city reduced their subsidy they almost had to shut down in 2011. In response to the subsidy reduction they reduced their staff from 84 to 77. Apparently this is what inspired the fare increase back then. http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...it-finds-funds The current MDOT page for the DTC has them at 86 employees. https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616...1454--,00.html But they still have a bunch of job openings posted. http://www.thepeoplemover.com/dtc-employment-postings/

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Originally Posted by CassTechGrad

What could possibly be going wrong with the People Mover that requires constant repairs and maintenance by a large group of people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year??? What systems are breaking down EVERY DAY??

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Your past made me wonder how efficient the Detroit operation is. The same system was installed in Toronto and Vancouver. Vancouver has added several newer systems as well.

Comparison [[Detroit vs. Vancouver):

Track? 3 vs. 49 miles.

Cars? 12 vs. 326.

Annual Ridership? 2 million vs. 178 million.

Number of dedicated cable stayed bridges? 0 vs. 1.

Staff? 89 vs 900.

So with 10 times the staff they service, 6% of the track, 3% of the moving stock, and 1.2% of the ridership of Vancouver's SkyTrain.

Certainly there are efficiencies of scale in Vancouver's larger system, but this suggests that Detroit's PM is not understaffed.

[[source: Skytrain staffing from website, remainder from Wikipedia)

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Originally Posted by Jason

Another thing to factor is that they can only do maintenance on the trains when the trains are out of service. The trains are in service practically all day long. It runs 6:30-12:00 Monday-Thursday, 6:30-2:00 AM Friday, 9-2:00 AM Saturday, and noon to midnight on Sunday. I'm sure there are other things that need doing during the day, but they can only work on most things during weird hours. That might affect what counts as overtime and extra pay. The limited/weird working hours might be compounded by being short staffed.

Here's the article about how when the city reduced their subsidy they almost had to shut down in 2011. In response to the subsidy reduction they reduced their staff from 84 to 77. Apparently this is what inspired the fare increase back then. http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...it-finds-funds The current MDOT page for the DTC has them at 86 employees. https://www.michigan.gov/mdot/0,4616...1454--,00.html But they still have a bunch of job openings posted. http://www.thepeoplemover.com/dtc-employment-postings/

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The number of job openings in the link certainly explains the high amount of overtime. When anywhere has more work than qualified people, the OT climbs rapidly.