Not bad for a binman:
Devon Graham was sixth on the department list of highest overtime payouts. He worked in Queens and retired last month after earning $153,000 in overtime, taking his salary to $282,000. “It is a nice windfall, though at the time, it didn’t feel that way,” he said.
The thing being, in a lot of American union contracts – OK, a lot to most to all perhaps – pension is calculated on last year wages including overtime. At maybe 75% per year for life.
Working another year without that overtime could have caused a $5 million (just to give a sighting shot) loss…..
If there is that amount of work in the system that they need that much overtime, why not just employ the required amount of actual people instead?
Union rules? (wild guess)
Your tax dollars at work.
That’s one reason that surviving DB schemes often swap from Final Salary to Career Averaged Revalued Earnings.
Pity that the latter is blemished by the vile acronym CARE.
Hold on, so he earns $130,000 before overtime ?
Blimey no wonder the place is bankrupt.
$130k per year for emptying bins? Bloody hell, I’m in the wrong job.
If his basic was $130k, imagine what the managers in the refuse department are getting.
In the ‘olden’ days at HMIT (as was), senior staff were often offered a two-year stint in London before retirement. That came with a London salary weighting which counted as part of your final salary for the final salary pension.
off topic but over in Spudland, there’s a marvellous piece in which Spud talks about the fox bashing Jolyn Maugham and the Good Law project which Spud manages to make all about himself and how brilliant he is.
I think I read once that the RAF promotes people by one rank the day before they retire, and their pension is based on the new rank.
In his memoir The View From Number Eleven Nigel Lawson remarked on the fact that NHS merit awards invariably seemed to go to consultants who were in their final year of service.
@CJ Nerd
I think I read once that the RAF promotes people by one rank the day before they retire, and their pension is based on the new rank.
Certainly didn’t do that to me
RN has been known to do it the other way. Commodore is – was – an appointment, not a rank. Pension only goes up if 4 years in appointment. Average Commodore apt is 2 years. So, unless you get a double shot at it rank reverts to Captain as does pension and pay.
Father did get double shot. 3 yrs 10 months I think…..
He didn’t earn 130k. He was PAID 130k
Nobody can EARN 130k emptying bins.
Most US pension plans use high 5-year average earnings, just BTW. Common exceptions are police & fire, but they usually only go as far as high average 2 year, but in neither case is just the last years, so if your pay went down you wouldn’t lose benefits. But the real point of getting that down to a 2-year average is the potential to get a late promotion or put in extreme overtime at the end.
It works in the NHS too, with nurses working part time for most of their career, then going full time for the last couple of years, as their pensions are based on their best salary over that period.
In the meantime Tim just over on TRUK where his meds might be kicking in to a certain degree. Interesting take on inflation being solely due to fuel prices which is why zero interest rates need to be maintained. An attack on Rishi Sunak for not wanting to emulate 90s Zimbabwe. A paean to ‘Soapy Joe’ who apparently used Murphy as an example to make a better world. And an attack on people who decide that lockdown may not be the ideal solution to the COVID crisis as being ‘Far Right’.
plenty to fisk for you but you may decide you have either done it before or you might have better things to do with your time.
It used to be common in the Army that a “temporary” rank that wasn’t gazetted didn’t count. I knew a Colonel who reverted back to Lt Col. After the Great War a lot of temp generals ( many with knighthoods) were demoted to their substantive ranks, several rungs down the ladder.
My nephew went straight from school to work at M&S. He stayed there for around 9 years working hard and gaining various promotions.
A few years ago he got sick of it and became a train driver with Southern region. His salary immediately more than doubled and that’s before considering overtime. Unions are still a very powerful factor.
I have a morning writing gig now. So, TRUK gets to wait until lunchtime to be perused….
It works in the NHS too, with nurses working part time for most of their career, then going full time for the last couple of years, as their pensions are based on their best salary over that period.
In most UK DB schemes, pension is calculated on FTE pay, but you only accrue for the hours worked. So if you have a £40k job, but work half-time for £20k, your pension is based on the full salary, but you only earn 6 months entitlement for each full year worked. I’d be surprised if the NHS scheme is any different.
There used to be some US police forces where the unions had got the earnings averaging period down to your final 24 hours. Triple shift on a holiday was a great time to retire.
If The government had some balls they would not need to renegotiate anything, just publish the market value of the pension entitlements given and show the total earnings by salary band: i.e. the sticker says 45k per year but once you count overtime and market value of pension the top quartile were actually paid 100k. Would somewhat help undermine future wage negotiation rounds.
I think I read once that the RAF promotes people by one rank the day before they retire, and their pension is based on the new rank.
Long time ago now and I can’t see the RAF being any different. In my day you had to hold substantive rank for 2 years before it counted for pension.
Use of temporary rank in the Signals was used to be a away of seeing if someone was up to the job (I believe for most of the army) or if there wasn’t a position in the org chart but they wanted to promote someone for some reason. It could be kept on posting but usually substantive was granted. Anyone who held temporary SGT was usually posted if they were going to revert to their substantive rank. Nearly all promotions started as T and were confirmed substantive within a month.