BART janitors earn six figures.
Agency officials say they have shut down OT, and stations are showing it
Giving new meaning to the term “filthy rich,” three BART janitors racked up a combined $365,000 in overtime pay last year by cleaning up some of the system’s grungiest stations in downtown San Francisco.
The OT more than doubled the regular pay in 2016 for custodians Liang Zhao Zhang, who chalked up $125,573 in overtime pay, and Gapo Chan, who received $125,254 for extra hours, newly released records show. The third worker, Yui Fai Ko, pulled in $115,007 in overtime.
Together, they worked a combined 7,900 hours of overtime at a cost equivalent to nearly 53,000 round-trip BART rides between downtown Oakland and San Francisco’s Fi-
nancial District.
But BART’s gravy train of overtime has dried up, as the transit agency attempts to balance its budget, spokeswoman Alicia Trost said Thursday.
“We turned off all overtime for janitors at the beginning of this year,” she said. A hiring freeze was placed on janitors’ jobs, too.
The janitors who grossed six-figure overtime pay have been toiling tirelessly at some of BART’s grossest jobs that no one else wants, Trost insisted.
An increasing number of “homeless (people are) seeking shelter at our stations,” she said.
“These workers clean up urine, feces and needles, and we are thankful for their hard work and that they take the shifts to help tackle the cleanliness problem,” she said. “The job isn’t for everyone.”
Even with the overtime, the agency has struggled to keep aging stations in its sprawling system clean — and the problem is likely to get worse.
“Station cleanliness, especially at these downtown San Francisco stations, are impacted because we are not allowing the extra overtime shifts,” Trost said.
Riders said they are seeing — and smelling — the impact.
“It smells like piss in here,” said a man who would only identify himself as Karl as he rode an elevator up from the Montgomery Street Station to Market Street on Thursday. “It always does. It’s worse in the mornings.”
Among janitors’ many jobs is cleaning station elevators.
Alexis Wright, an Al- ameda resident who takes BART to work after riding a ferry to San Francisco, said the Civic Center Station is especially dirty these days.
“Yesterday I sidestepped several large drops of blood, dried feces and a syringe,” she said. “If it gets worse due to budget cuts, I may not be able to use that station anymore, which will complicate my commute.”
Of the four BART stops along Market Street, only one janitor appeared to be on duty between 9:30 and 11 p.m. on Wednesday.
The San Francisco stations were littered with papers and food scraps as Giants fans waited for trains after Wednesday night’s game. Several people slept on the floor of the Powell Street Station. A few blocks away, outside the Orpheum Theatre where the acclaimed musical “Hamilton” is play- ing, steps leading into the Civic Center Station were strewn with trash.
BART’s board president, Rebecca Saltzman, wasn’t immediately available for an interview about station cleanliness. While the stations get dirtier, the OT freeze will also have an impact on the janitors’ paychecks.
Even before the freeze, Zhang, dubbed the “super janitor” for taking home $162,000 in OT in 2015, saw his 2016 overtime and his yearly gross pay go down. He grossed $197,000, down $38,000 from the previous year.
None of BART’s other 131 janitors, called “system service workers,” topped $100,000 in overtime last year, according to the records, released in response to a Public Records Act request.