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The joy of public sector unions
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Kaplony Offline
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The joy of public sector unions
https://reason.com/blog/2018/05/21/firef...rtime-by-w

Quote:Los Angeles firefighter Donn Thompson had a busy year in 2017. If his pay stubs are to be believed, he literally never stopped working.

Data obtained by Transparent California, a project of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, show that Thompson pulled down $300,000 in overtime pay during 2017, on top of his $92,000 salary. Over the past four years, Thompson has earned more than $1 million in overtime, according to Transparent California's database. Thompson's ability to work so many hours "boggles the mind," says Robert Fellner, director of research at the institute.

To earn that much in overtime pay, Thompson would have had to work more hours than actually exist in a single year. Either the highly paid firefighter found a way to stretch the space-time continuum or something fishy is going on.

Here's how the math breaks down. Thompson, like all firefighters in Los Angeles, works 2,912 hours every year. With a base salary of $92,000, that comes to an hourly rate of $31.60. That means Thompson would earn overtime pay at a rate of $47.40 per hour—that's one and a half times the base rate. But earning $302,000 at a rate of $47.40 per hour would require working more than 6,370 hours. Add that to the 2,912 hours he worked as a salaried employee, and you get more than 9,280 hours worked, despite the fact that there are only 8,760 hours in a year.

Quote:While Thompson's payouts are certainly eye-popping, he's hardly the only firefighter in L.A. reaping huge taxpayer-funded earnings. During 2017, the Los Angeles Fire Department had 512 employees who cashed in with at least $100,000 in overtime pay, according to Transparent California. That's a tenfold increase over the 51 employees who got six-figure overtime pay as recently as 2012. Thompson was one of 26 employees to get at least $200,000 in overtime pay last year, when the department reported spending $198 million on overtime pay—a 74 percent increase since 2012.
05-23-2018 03:58 PM
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fsquid Offline
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RE: The joy of public sector unions
maybe their overtime is 2 times pay instead of 1.5?
05-23-2018 04:39 PM
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chargeradio Offline
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RE: The joy of public sector unions
(05-23-2018 04:39 PM)fsquid Wrote:  maybe their overtime is 2 times pay instead of 1.5?
That would still require him to work 4,778 hours of overtime at $63.20/hour, in addition to his base pay.

One possible flaw I saw in the article is that it had his base pay at 2,912 hours instead of 2,080 (52 weeks at 40 hours). But as the article suggests, something fishy may be going on anyway. I’m not sure how holidays and/or weekends would be treated, which may be an opportunity to artificially inflate the overtime rate.
05-23-2018 07:13 PM
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Kaplony Offline
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Post: #4
RE: The joy of public sector unions
(05-23-2018 07:13 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  
(05-23-2018 04:39 PM)fsquid Wrote:  maybe their overtime is 2 times pay instead of 1.5?
That would still require him to work 4,778 hours of overtime at $63.20/hour, in addition to his base pay.

One possible flaw I saw in the article is that it had his base pay at 2,912 hours instead of 2,080 (52 weeks at 40 hours). But as the article suggests, something fishy may be going on anyway. I’m not sure how holidays and/or weekends would be treated, which may be an opportunity to artificially inflate the overtime rate.

The LA City Fire Department works 24 hour shifts which leads to a 56 hour work week.
05-23-2018 07:21 PM
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Paul M Offline
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RE: The joy of public sector unions
Not defending this but as a young guy I worked for my city water dept. 8-5. At 5 if they needed anyone to continue working you'd get time and a half till 10 the following morning. 18 overtime hours. Say you worked 26 hours Monday morning till Tuesday, you just worked 26 hours and your getting paid for 34, 16 straight time and 18 time and a half. Volunteer for Sat or Sun, or both, time and a half. They might turn into 26 hours days. Over the 8, double time. Holidays, 2 1/2 times pay.

I would pull a 26 usually once a week, 2 to 4 weekend days in a month, half of which would turn into 26, and would volunteer for most holidays. Always Christmas eve and day and New Years eve and day. Some of those eves would turn into 26 and I'd end up with Christmas day or NY's day off with that double time and a half because I'd already volunteered.

Most just couldn't do the math I guess but I would have days off while they worked and in total wouldn't work many more hours then they did and would have checks where I'd have more overtime hours than straight time.

Private sector would never allow this but public sector can be so horrible with other peoples money and smart people can use that to their advantage.

Besides, if I knocked off at five I'd drink until the bars closed and if I worked I'd drink till the sun came up. 03-wink
(This post was last modified: 05-23-2018 07:27 PM by Paul M.)
05-23-2018 07:25 PM
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Kaplony Offline
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RE: The joy of public sector unions
(05-23-2018 07:25 PM)Paul M Wrote:  Not defending this but as a young guy I worked for my city water dept. 8-5. At 5 if they needed anyone to continue working you'd get time and a half till 10 the following morning. 18 overtime hours. Say you worked 26 hours Monday morning till Tuesday, you just worked 26 hours and your getting paid for 34, 16 straight time and 18 time and a half. Volunteer for Sat or Sun, or both, time and a half. They might turn into 26 hours days. Over the 8, double time. Holidays, 2 1/2 times pay.

I would pull a 26 usually once a week, 2 to 4 weekend days in a month, half of which would turn into 26, and would volunteer for most holidays. Always Christmas eve and day and New Years eve and day. Some of those eves would turn into 26 and I'd end up with Christmas day or NY's day off with that double time and a half because I'd already volunteered.

Most just couldn't do the math I guess but I would have days off while they worked and in total wouldn't work many more hours then they did and would have checks where I'd have more overtime hours than straight time.

Private sector would never allow this but public sector can be so horrible with other peoples money and smart people can use that to their advantage.

Besides, if I knocked off at five I'd drink until the bars closed and if I worked I'd drink till the sun came up. 03-wink

When I first started with the FD there were no limitations on how many hours we could work in a week OT. I pulled a number of 288 hour pay periods (two weeks @ 144 hours per week) in those days primarily because my wife was still in school and working fulltime and we didn't have kids. Hell, there were times where I would swap apparatus on calls in order to either get to my regular duty assignment or overtime assignment. The way our schedules were set up we didn't start earning OT until we hit 96 hours in a pay period, and each pay period your hours would change because of the three shift rotation. They then put a rule in place where you couldn't work more than 72 consecutive hours unless it was previously authorized by the Chief of Dept, an emergency situation or you were on a deployment and prioritized utilizing the folks on whichever of the three shifts was on the short cycle that pay period. Of course this wasn't always possible and there were plenty of times I would between specialized training, call outs for the hazmat team, and other duties where I would exceed that.



But the example in the OP is extreme by any means used, especially since he's doing it at an extremely busy station in the LA City FD. At some point you simply have to have eight hour of uninterrupted sleep and he's not getting that where he's stationed.
05-23-2018 08:07 PM
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