The highlight:
On a spring evening in 2004, Mr. Koerber reported for his overnight shift as a train engineer at the Jamaica Storage Yard. By the end of his eight-hour shift, Mr. Koerber would earn four days’ pay for one day’s work, transportation authority records show.
Assigned to the railyard that night, Koerber was instead sent to passenger service. Under union rules, this change entitled him to an extra day’s pay. Over the next few hours, he ended up operating both an electric engine and a diesel engine. These dual duties earned him a second day’s pay.
Around 2 a.m., Mr. Koerber took an engine in for maintenance. With that came another day’s pay.
These three contract violations resulted in penalty payments that totaled $718. He also earned, among other things, $157 for a few hours of overtime and
$15 for not getting to eat during his normal lunch break. The L.I.R.R. was supposed to pay him $247 for his work that day. Instead, he ended up with $1,177.
Shifts like this were not that unusual. Mr. Koerber pulled off seven others like it that year.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/nyregion/21lirr.html?_r=1&sq=rail%20road%20union%20pension&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=print
