Transit crews who worked at ground zero still awaiting disability benefit

Philip Ronnie Shpiller retired from his 30-year career with the city as an emergency-response plumber with the New York City Transit Authority in 2012. But in a very real sense, the work never left him. 

Shpiller and dozens of his colleagues at the authority had labored with firefighters, cops and other first responders at ground zero following the September 11 terror attacks, sifting through still-smoldering rubble over the course of six long days and nights. As a stunned city tried to make sense of the events, they worked to find the remains of the dead. They did so out of a sense of duty, Shpiller said a few years ago.

He and his TA coworkers toiled at the site over four 16-hour days and two 12-hour days. Shpiller and hundreds of those who labored at the site would pay and still do pay, often dearly, for the time they spent on the pile. 

In the years following his retirement, Shpiller, who would eventually move to Florida, was diagnosed as having post-traumatic stress syndrome, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and reactive airways dysfunction syndrome, which can be caused by a single exposure to high levels of an irritant or after repeated exposures to lower levels. His treatment was being paid through the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund.

He eventually succumbed to illness attributable to his work at ground zero, last Sept. 10, in his hometown of Boynton Beach. Shpiller was 70. For years, though, he had led an effort on behalf of his colleagues to secure a disability pension granted to thousands of other civil servants who sifted through the ruins of the twin towers. Sick, but also frustrated and increasingly angry, he lobbied elected officials to correct what he believed was not just an oversight, but an injustice.

“We did 16-hour days and when we were being taken back to our shop by bus at 11:30 at night, there were thousands of people lining the sidewalks holding lit candles because there was no electricity and they were thanking us and calling us heroes, and yet 21 and a half years later we are still fighting for what we deserve,” Shpiller said two years ago, as yet another legislative effort to secure the pension provision languished in Albany. 

Philip Ronnie Shpiller and his NYC Transit Authority coworkers labored long days and nights during rescue and recovery operations at ground zero. Shpiller, who was beset by numerous ailments but nonetheless for years led the fight for disability pensions, died last Sept. 10 of causes attributed to his work on the pile.

Courtesy of Philip Ronnie Shpiller

Sons take up cause

For at least six years, a bill that would grant the retired NYCTA workers who contracted an illness as a consequence of having participated in the rescue, recovery or cleanup efforts — otherwise known as a qualifying condition — “a performance of duty” disability pension equal to 75 percent of the worker’s final average salary has failed to advance to the full floor, even though it was unanimously approved by members of the Senate’s Civil Service and Pensions Committee as recently as last year.

Yet another effort is underway this session. Staten Island Senator Jessica Scarcella-Spanton has, as she did two years ago, introduced legislation that would provide the disability pension to the transit workers.

 It was referred to the Pensions Committee April 21. There is as yet no companion bill in the Assembly, although it’s expected that Queens Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer Amato will again sponsor the bill in that chamber.

“For me, this is just one small part and what we can do for the transit workers who took part in the rescue efforts who were there that day. It's something they just simply deserve,” Scarcella-Spanton said Wednesday. 

She noted that one of her uncles was a firefighter with Rescue 5 who took part in the recovery efforts at ground zero and would later develop a 9/11-related cancer, to which he succumbed in 2012. “Anybody who has done work with the World Trade Center and who has gotten sick deserves to have everything that the state, city and the federal government frankly can give to them,” Scarcella-Spanton said. 

The legislation would not come cheap, at least in the long run. The updated fiscal note, with figures as of nearly a year ago, estimated a first-year cost of $14.1 million for the 59 NYCTA workers who were retired then and had contracted an illness as a result of having participated in the rescue, recovery or cleanup efforts. The average age of the retirees was just over 65. At least 224 transit workers — and perhaps hundred more — still with the agency could eventually be eligible, according to the note. 

“The cost of this proposed legislation could vary greatly depending on the number of future members who benefit and on their length of service, age, and salary history,” the fiscal note’s authors concluded.

Scarcella-Spanton last year suggested that if the legislation didn’t move forward that the best option could be to include the necessary funding in the state budget. But it could be too late for that this year. “But now that we have the fiscal [note] and we know what it is, we can start talking about this often for, hopefully, fingers crossed, the next budget. Not to say I'm not going to make a push for it this year, but I think that's probably the more realistic thing to do,” she said. 

For now, the retired TA workers are eligible for a performance of duty disability benefit calculated by figuring 1/60th of their final average salary times their years of service. That amounts to at least one-third of the worker’s final average salary, but to less than half of what they would receive according to the bill.  

At least in part, Shpiller’s battle for what he was convinced he and his colleagues were due has fallen to his sons, William Justin Shpiller and Philip Ronnie Shpiller. 

“I know a lot of people think it's about the money, but the truth of the matter is … wherever there was an injustice, Ron Shpiller showed up to fight,” Philip Ronnie Jr. said Monday. 

Still, Shpiller’s sons are cautiously optimistic, despite their own very real frustrations in trying to make the legislation’s case with state legislators, that this could be the year the Transit Authority workers finally get what is due them, in part and ironically enough because of their father’s passing. 

“Maybe this time around, when the story ends the way it ended — a guy fighting and he lost his life — it's like, you know, that's what they're waiting for here,” Philip Ronnie Jr. said. “Maybe somebody will have a little bit of compassion and listen this time around — hopefully.”

richardk@thechiefleader.com