Tool's Disability Outrage

They should arrest the Bus matron for incompetence!..Hope The arrested individual has a lawyer who can sue the heck out of all parties when this is over.

kmart wrote:I think Tool has explained the fact that so many LIRR employees file for occupational disability,(can retire at 50 as opposed to 60)quite clearly and in numurous posts.yet some indiviuals just dont seem to understand.They just keep quoting the newspapers that misrepresent the facts.

I don't believe that I've quoted a single newspaper.

What I am asking is if anyone has a reasonable explanation as to why so many LIRR retirees are receiving disability annuities - at a rate far above that of the rest of the industry, retirement age be damned. What I get in return is some guy who speaks in the third person and directs me to read the entire thread, someone asking if I'm serious, and accusations that I'm a troll. Ooooooooo K, then.

You guys have fun in your echo chamber.

Tool.....I am not even involved...But to see what happened to FK brings a tear to my eye..as you have said so many times...Disabilities on the LIRR are a direct result of the mangement negotiated contracts that encourage employes to retire at an earlier age and can apply earlier than other rail companies..NJT just does not get it

This is Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General's press release announcing FK's arrest.

http://www.oag.state.ny.us/media_center ... 7d_08.html

The New York Times also printed the release today along with a photo. Apparently the media was invited to attend the arrest and "perp walk" festivities. While FK's crime appears to be accepting money for advice regarding his former position with the Pension Department, Cuomo appears to be going forward with other "criminals" too.

The attorney general is searching all LIRR emails for key words such as "disability" and "retirement" and desires to prosecute those employees who may have used the LIRR email system to discuss their pension plans. The Attorney General is stating that it will take action against those employees whose discussions are deemed to be less than acceptable to the Railroad or personal in nature.

jb9152 wrote:

kmart wrote:What I get in return is some guy who speaks in the third person and directs me to read the entire thread, someone asking if I'm serious, and accusations that I'm a troll. Ooooooooo K, then.

I speak in the first person. Read the thread, you'll learn a lot. Just because you walked into the middle of the movie and want to know what's going on means they have to stop everything to let you catch up.

-otto-

Daily News jumps on board:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crim ... sted_.html

A Long Island Rail Road executive has been busted for masterminding "systematic abuse" that helped colleagues bilk the U.S. government out of disability benefits. Frederick Kreuder, the manager for budget development analysis, was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court Monday on felony and misdemeanor misconduct charges stemming from an elaborates cam. Kreuder, 49, assigned to the railroad's Hollis, Queens,office, is accused of accepting money in exchange for helping retiring employees cheat the government out of thousands of dollars in disability payments.

Gentlemen,

I have been reading this thread with interest since it first appeared. While I am not a rail road man, I am a uniformed civil servant who appreciates what the working stiff goes through. Disability retirements are for people who, because of occupational injuries, have their work lives shortened. I can only begin to imagine the hazards rail road people encounter. That one jolt or sway of equipment that catches someone off balance can ruin knees, pelvises, backs, shoulders, and arms. God forbid one injures their head seriously. There is no disability reward to replace that injury.

I am outraged that the newspapers should point their fingers at the honorable members of the rail road industry. Newspapers have some work rules that should only see the light of day! And they are union, too!

What are the lessons learned from all of this? A few big mouths from the locker rooms spilled the beans and let the genie out of the bottle! That everyone who was injured should become suspect is intolerable. I also find it amusing that the LIRR/MTA executive staff have been running around like "Henny Penny" crying the "sky is falling" or something to that effect. That's something for the line staff to look at. Leadership that inspires. Guys, I feel for ya.'

The worst part is trying to force the long island railroad out of the RRB system. Is New York state going to pay back all the tier II owed if you guys get forced out. That would be a mess. Interest payments for 30 years plus on some employees for all tier II collected, I know that would come out of New York State Taxpayers! RRB ain't paying nothing back to no one, they don't even want Cuomo involved in the first place. I can't see RRB kicking the LIRR out, it just doesn't work that way. But then again RRB now has two sets of criteria, one for the rest of the countries railroads OD claims, and one for the LIRR's OD claims. That might be the beginning of the end for the LIRR in RRB. That pisses me off because that's less money being put into the system. But they got there "perp" walk. They will have a few doctors get "walked", some retired managers get "walked", a few retired rank and file employees get "walked" , and that will be the end of it. Cuomo SAVED the taxpayer money, money the taxpayer never lost in the first place since it RRB never comes out of their pocket to begin with. But it looks good to the N.Y. state average Joe who the railroaders cheated money out of there pockets. Its like railroaders complaining about Social Security abuse. I don't pay a dime into social security, and if Railroad Retirement payed one red cent to stop Social Security abuse I would be PISSED. Wake up New York State taxpayer, there spending your hard earned money to get back money that does not go into your pockets when it is so called "stoped". Not one red cent, the state will spend millions in lawyers and investigations, and you will get nothing in return.

Leave it to the New York Post never to be outdone. While other papers are searching for fraud, The Post has found not a few, not some, not most, but a full 100% of retirees guilty of fraud:

Nearly 100 percent of retiring LIRR workers received lucrative disability benefits to go with their regular pensions by getting doctors to sign off on nonexistent injuries.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11182008/ne ... 139293.htm

Quite a claim, eh? Real journalism? Outright libel. Why look for facts when you can just make stuff up? Take a lesson from the development of these inaccuracies when you read anything in the mass media.

This story about the arrest is now in todays TRAINS magazine railroad news.

Wow, really made the big time now, eh Bob?

Hello wise Tool...do you think the Post article was written by the same crack heads that proof read the Daily News article?

No, Honorable A23, Tool's research finds the Post writer was a guy or gal named IKIMULISA.

But not to be beat, the Daily News did take this story to the next plateau. Why burden oneself with investigations or time consuming research, when the Daily News editors can simply make stuff up without signing it, like the fairy tale from today's edition:

The quarter-billion-dollar bogus disability pension ripoff perpetrated by virtually every recent retiree from the Long Island Rail Road has produced its first criminal case. Here is the press release we wish we'd read:

"New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced the arrests of scores of present and former LIRR employees, benefits consultants, doctors and officials of the federal railroad retirement agency on charges ranging from grand larceny to negligence so gross as to be felonious.

"Cuomo also is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution from LIRR retirees who filed false medical reports of incapacitating injuries."

Alas, the attorney general's action was, hmmm, somewhat more underwhelming. He busted LIRR bureaucrat Frederick Kreuder for taking $100 to help someone draw up a federal pension application - and with funneling that grand sum to a youth baseball team he coached.

Kreuder, of course, deserves what he gets. But so do many, many others. Having fired this popgun, Cuomo needs to prime his cannons.

Most wise Tool...we would not like to see any more arrests but do you know of any more to come?

A23, You lost me on that last post.