Soaring Salaries
Even in the face of the financial crisis and budget shortfalls, the M.T.A. has given concession after concession to its main labor union.
Members of the Transport Workers Union got a total of 19 percent in pay raises between 2009 and 2016, compared with 12 percent for the city’s teachers union over the same period.
The labor contracts also gave members lifetime spousal health benefits and free rides on the Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. (They already were allowed to ride the subway for free.)
According to a former union president, John Samuelsen, the organization has secured better deals over the past eight years than any other public labor group in New York.
“I look back with satisfaction on what, together, we have accomplished,” Mr. Samuelsen said in a September letter announcing that he was becoming the union’s international president.
Each of three deals signed from 2009 to 2017 cost more than the M.T.A. anticipated, forcing it to take money from other parts of the budget. The 2014 deal, which cost $525 million, was funded by tapping into a pay-as-you-go account that was intended to pay for capital work, former officials said.
New York vs. Other Major Subways
Subway workers now make an average of $170,000 annually in salary, overtime and benefits, according to a Times analysis of data compiled by the federal Department of Transportation. That is far more than in any other American transit system; the average in cities like Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington is about $100,000 in total compensation annually.
The pay for managers is even more extraordinary. The nearly 2,500 people who work in New York subway administration make, on average, $280,000 in salary, overtime and benefits. The average elsewhere is $115,000.
New York is more expensive than most other cities, but not by that much. The latest estimate from the federal Department of Commerce said the region’s cost of living was 22 percent higher than the national average and 10 percent higher than the average for other areas with subways.
Mr. Samuelsen rejected the idea that subway workers were overpaid, arguing that it is a dangerous job in which assault is common. “We earn every penny that we make,” he said. “This is New York City. This isn’t Mayberry. It costs $700,000 to buy a house in Brooklyn. What do you want us to make? Fifteen dollars an hour?”
Union rules also drive up costs, including by requiring two M.T.A. employees on every train — one to drive, and one to oversee boarding. Virtually every other subway in the world staffs trains with only one worker; if New York did that, it would save nearly $200 million a year, according to an internal M.T.A. analysis obtained by The Times.
Several M.T.A. officials involved in negotiating recent contracts said that there was one reason they accepted the union’s terms: Mr. Cuomo.
The governor, who is closely aligned with the union and has received $165,000 in campaign contributions from the labor group, once dispatched a top aide to deliver a message, they said.
Pay the union and worry about finding the money later, the aide said, according to two former M.T.A. officials who were in the room.
Mr. Cuomo’s office said in a statement that the M.T.A. handled its own labor negotiations and that campaign contributions had not influenced any of his actions.
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A Vast Personal Toll
The cost of increasing delays can be measured not only in numbers, but also in painful absences on special occasions, lost wages and blown opportunities. Over the summer, The Times asked readers to share their experiences with the subway. More than 1,000 responded, mostly with stories of sorrow.
Ashley Patterson, 24, from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, began having anxiety attacks on the subway this summer and now follows a careful routine to keep calm during delays.
“I think that that’s something that the M.T.A. should be thinking about,” Ms. Patterson said. “It’s not just about the inconvenience of being late to work. There’s this mental health aspect.”
Laura Hernandez, 34, a city employee from Woodside, Queens, missed an appointment to inspect the housing conditions of the clients of a social service agency. “I am a new employee on probation, and it does not look good to arrive over an hour late for an appointment,” Ms. Hernandez said.
Juliana S. Karol, 30, from the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is a rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College downtown. She was late to a meeting to discuss her senior thesis, ordination and job placement. She was also 38 weeks pregnant.
“I actually ended up writing my High Holy Days sermon about the subway,” Ms. Karol said. “About the opportunities that the subway crisis gives us to reframe both the gratitude we have when things are going right and how we respond when they are not.”
The entire fifth-grade class at Public School 32 in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, had to cancel a field trip to see a movie — a reward for completing math exams.
“They had actually gone to the station, and they just ended up waiting forever,” said Dawn Reed, 52, whose son was one of the disappointed students. She said she used the experience to teach him about managing expectations. “It’s getting progressively worse,” she said of the subway. “And delays are a part of life, and it’s difficult to have any sense of consistency.”
Ariel Leigh Cohen, 26, from Sunnyside, Queens, missed an interview for a job painting scenery for a major Broadway show. It would have paid twice her salary as a salon receptionist and brought her closer to her dream of working in show business.
“I was trying to change my life and do what I came to New York to do,” Ms. Cohen said. “It would’ve opened up another world of possibilities. Opportunities like that don’t come around often at all.”
And then there are stories like Rosalie Osian’s. A chaplain who comforts the terminally ill for Caring Hospice Services, Ms. Osian, 58, got word one Friday that a patient was dying in Brooklyn, and she struck out on a 2 train from 72nd Street in Manhattan.
She made it as far as Fulton Street downtown before an announcement told her to switch to the 4 or 5. Problems on that line forced her to switch trains again, and at one point she was left standing on a platform, racked by the need to be with the patient and prepare the family for grief and pending loss. She was late getting there but made it before the patient died.
“I’m not the only one,” Ms. Osian said. “There are people traveling the city all day helping people. There are home health aides and others. And if the subways are delayed, they can’t get to their work.”
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