Monday, September 28, 2015

De Blasio scrambles to get lawmakers raises while city workers starving

Angelo Torres lives in his car.  Photo by Geoffrey Croft
From the NY Post:

But even if you wonder how someone can hit rock bottom while raking in a salary, however small, plus enviable fringe benefits, paid vacations, sick pay, the chance to earn overtime pay and a retirement pension, consider this: De Blasio, man of the people, is moving heaven and earth to boost the bottom lines of himself and his closest political allies.

In keeping with his penchant for creating new layers of government bureaucracy to find solutions for questionable problems, de Blasio announced this month that he has formed a three-member advisory commission to determine whether all city officials who are elected deserve to get the potentially fat pay raises they’ve been denied for the last eight years.

I’m not crying for city brass. The 51 members of the useless City Council each earns $112,500 annually, plus “lulus” — most get stipends between $5,000 and $20,000 annually for heading committees and subcommittees. Public Advocate Letitia James rakes in $165,000 a year, essentially for finding ways to make cops miserable. And does anyone know what the five borough presidents do to justify their $160,000-apiece annual pay?

And then there’s the mayor.

He gets paid $225,000 a year and lives rent-free with his family in Gracie Mansion, where a 12-person staff cooks, cleans and tends the yard, plus cops are on call to drive him around. (De Blasio’s spokesman said he’d decline a pay hike now, but the mayor opened the door to sharing in the wealth if he’s re-elected in 2017.)

But where is the committee to determine whether peons like [park worker Angelo] Torres deserve monstrous pay hikes?

DC 37 locals represent a total of 121,000 workers, and some full-timers earn as little as $24,000 a year.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have no sympathy for any union that blindly supports Democrats. I have sympathy for the workers, but not the union.

JQ said...

No surprise here, especially since he believes that the proletariat construction minions should not get living wages to fulfill his bogus affordable housing scheme.

The blaz and all the electeds are sociopathic people. The majority of politicians are, it's in their nature.

Anonymous said...

I have no sympathy for any union that blindly supports Democrats. I have sympathy for the workers, but not the union.

Seriously. When a municipality's primary becomes its de facto general election, the people are doing politics wrongly and not leveraging their power.

Anonymous said...

"... but the mayor opened the door to sharing in the wealth if he’s re-elected in 2017.

This is a joke, right?

Middle Villager said...

How about we pay the politicians based on performance reviews? The way I see it, they will be paying us.

Anonymous said...

Pattern bargaining on contracts dose not work ! How can the same percentage wage increase be given to all city workers ? The gap between the poor and rich will keep growing until all we have is a Tale of Two Cities here in N.Y. !!! Workers did better under the Bloomberg administration.

(sarc) said...

These politicians work so hard, they should all get big raises...

Anonymous said...

Something is not right w/ this story. He can get a furnished room or a basement apartment or room mate situation. He's making it look like he's homeless to get on the front of the line for subsidized housing.

you don't have to have a home to wash your clothes at the laundry.
He has a car, which means he has a mailing address for his insurance.
He works for the Parks Dept, he can take a shower at a Parks facility or join a health club.

DC 37 is horrible and doesn't help the paople who pay their dues, or have it taken out of their paychecks.