Monday, June 19, 2017

lirr riders

and lirr ruding teamsters tell the  rail road man that he cannot close nassau otb a public benefit corporation based on. cuomo's religious preference, see also. ny  const art 1 sec 3

teamsters boss kevin mccaffrey told a union member at a local 707 meeting that he would do nothing to see that nassau otb is open so people have a choice to work snd or net












Cuomo asks MTA to chop LIRR fares during Penn Station track work
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
 




    Suffolk, Nassau OTB probe ethics conflict
    by David Winzelberg
    Published: November 24th, 2013

    At least one employee of Nassau County Off-Track Betting is questioning whether the head of his employee union, a member-elect of the Suffolk County Legislature, should have a say in Suffolk OTB business.
    Teamsters Local 707 President Kevin McCaffery, whose union represents about 200 Nassau OTB workers, was elected earlier this month to serve as a Suffolk legislator representing the 14th District. In a letter last week, Nassau OTB cashier Jackson Leeds alerted the Suffolk County Ethics Board to McCaffery’s possible conflict of interest.
    “As a Suffolk County legislator, his duties are to the people of Suffolk County,” Leeds wrote. “He cannot simultaneously represent the interests of employees of Nassau OTB, a Nassau County public benefit corporation.”
    McCaffery told LIBN he doesn’t think the two counties’ OTBs are in competition with each other and he doesn’t see his role as union leader for Nassau OTB workers as a conflict with issues surrounding Suffolk OTB.
    “If anything, I have the background of dealing with Nassau OTB, which gives me more insight on the subject than any other legislator out there,” McCaffery said.
    When asked if the legislator-elect’s union job appeared to be a conflict of interest, Nassau OTB chief Joseph Cairo said, “If you really want to stretch it. But I don’t see anything that’s apparent to me.”
    Cairo added that he’ll instruct the Nassau agency’s counsel to review the situation.
    Leeds, a 10-year veteran of Nassau OTB, complained that both union officials and county OTB management have been too focused on the 1,000 video lottery terminals planned for each county’s OTB and they’re not paying enough attention to current operations.
    “They never worked behind a window,” Leeds told LIBN. “They’re out of touch with the bettors of Nassau County.”
    Internet wagering and dwindling handles – the overall money being wagered – have prompted a consolidation in Nassau OTB’s operations in recent years; there were 15 betting offices in Nassau in 2003, and now there are eight. Suffolk OTB, which has seven branch offices, filed for bankruptcy last year.
    These days, according to some analysts, OTB offices exist largely for political patronage – another reason, according to Leeds, that the Nassau union chief shouldn’t mix one business with the other.
    “Union leaders should not be politicians,” he said. “OTBs are run by politicians. Being political and doing public good aren’t always incompatible, but they often are.”




    This isn’t the first time a Long Island legislator’s OTB ties have become an issue.
    In May 2000, Gregory Peterson, then-president of the Nassau OTB, sued to prevent Nassau County Leg. Roger Corbin from voting on appointments to the Nassau OTB’s board of directors. Because Corbin was employed as a branch manager for New York City OTB and a member of Teamsters Local 858, which then represented all employees of Nassau OTB, Peterson alleged Corbin’s legislative role posed a conflict of interest.
    A New York Supreme Court judge issued an injunction preventing Corbin from voting on OTB appointments, but Corbin appealed and the lower court’s decision was reversed. The Nassau County Board of Ethics also chimed in, determining by a 3-2 vote that voting on OTB appointments didn’t create a conflict because Corbin didn’t influence policy or engage in labor negotiations.
    With McCaffery, some observers say it’s best to proceed with caution.
    Anthony Figliola, vice president of Uniondale-based government relations firm Empire Government Strategies, said the legislator-elect may want to recuse himself from any votes concerning Suffolk OTB until the Suffolk County Ethics Board offers an opinion.
    “OTB is a political football,” Figliola said. “It’s better to stay out of it, especially if you want to get things done in the Legislature.”






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Gov. 

Cuomo wants the MTA to reduce fares this summer while emergency repairs are ongoing at Penn Station.

  (SUSAN WATTS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)




Gov. Cuomo called on the MTA board Monday to chop fares on Long Island Rail Road trains affected by this summer’s emergency track work at Penn Station.
Facing major disruptions at Penn Station, when Amtrak takes out tracks for critical repairs, Cuomo said the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should figure out a way to offer discounts for diverted-train riders.
MTA board members are expected to discuss the summertime fare cuts at a Wednesday meeting.
“I have no doubt that we’ll get a plan to implement it on Wednesday,” said MTA board member Mitch Pally, chairman of the board’s LIRR committee.
Pally said the agency should discount fares up to 15%, then send the bill to Amtrak, which owns Penn Station and is taking tracks out of service to make the repairs.








“For those people whose trains are diverted, they’re not being provided all the service they should be provided,” he said.
There will be 23 train trips diverted from Penn Station each day to hubs like Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn and Jamaica in Queens. The discounts could also entice riders, Cuomo said.
“You want to make sure people do take the diverted trains,” Cuomo said at the new West End Concourse at Penn Station. “We don’t have the capacity on the direct trains.”

Local 707's once booming pension fund runs out of money
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
 



Teamsters Local 707 used to have its logo prominently adorned of building that housed its Long Island headquarters. It now rents the third floor.

Teamsters Local 707 used to have its logo prominently adorned of building that housed its Long Island headquarters. It now rents the third floor.

  (DAVID WEXLER/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)

The teamsters logo, two horses over a carriage wheel, once dominated the facade of Local 707’s glass Long Island headquarters.
Now the union rents space on the building’s third floor. Only a small poster in the window tells visitors they’re at Local 707’s official home. “We used to own the building, the pension fund did,” said Kevin McCaffrey, 62, a teamster who heads the union pension fund. “We sold that, because of this crisis.”
McCaffrey has watched Local 707’s pension fund sink deeper into debt over the past 20 years — until the 2008 stock market crash sent it into a death spiral.
Like many union shops in the private sector — especially trucking, the teamsters bread-and-butter — Local 707 is a victim of bad timing and industry deregulation, experts say. The New York State Teamsters pension fund and the Central States Pension Fund are also teetering on the brink of insolvency.
Local 707 thrived in the 1980s — and its teamster workforce paid into a pension that was maintained by multiple employers with trucking enterprises.
The idea of a centralized pension plan initially worked well. No single company had to bear the brunt of pension payouts, and workers could move to different companies within the plan and not lose their accrued pension.
But deregulation in the 1990s chipped away at the multiple-employer plan foundation. With each industry contraction, there were fewer workers and fewer companies paying into it.
Still, in 1999, Local 707 was 100% funded. The tech bubble — followed by 9/11 — ruined that. The trust lost 30% of its assets. And companies started going out of business. Three of Local 707’s largest employers merged in 2004 — purchased by Yellow Freight, which borrowed cash to buy two competitors. When the 2008 crash came, Yellow Roadway Carrier couldn’t make its payments. The bank told it to force concessions from the unions or face liquidation, McCaffrey said. It employed 35,000 teamsters — 1,600 from Local 707. Employees took a 15% pay cut and gave up vacation time and other benefits.

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From left, Tim Chmil, Milton Acosta, Edward Hernandez, Ted Petrone and Ray Narvaez have all been struggling to make ends meet with their slashed pension checks.

  (SUSAN WATTS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
Yellow Roadway was allowed to skip its pension contributions for 18 months. When the company started paying again, it was at 25% of the previous rate. The fund began to topple, with roughly 700 workers paying into a fund supporting more than 4,000 retirees. Local 707’s fund pays out $48 million a year — and takes in $7.5 million in contributions, McCaffrey said.
“I’ve been lobbying Congress and asking anybody I can find for help for the last five years,” he said.
“The really horrible thing is, even though we saw this coming, we couldn’t do a thing to change it — because by law, we can’t touch pensions."
In 2014, Congress passed a law meant to give relief to multi-employer pensions — but when Local 707 applied for restructuring, it was denied.
It didn’t pass the solvency tests required for a bailout, McCaffrey said.The fund ran out of cash this month, throwing its retirees on the mercy of insurance payouts, about a third of what their pensions were.
McCaffrey has had to explain the new reality to his members. The worst calls are from the widows.
“They say, ‘We’re sure it’ll all work out, Mr. McCaffrey, because my husband told me, before he died, not to worry about anything because the union would always take care of me,’ ” he said. “I wish to God we could.”



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LIRR commuters have been suffering over the past few weeks as emergency track work has caused all sorts of delays and disruptions.

  (ANTHONY DELMUNDO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
Later, speaking to reporters, Cuomo said subway riders who regularly face daily diversions should get a break, too.
Interim MTA chief Ronnie Hakim said Monday she supports withholding payments from Amtrak.

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