A Post-Gazette article written by yours truly Monday under the headline "Absentees at Port Authority cost plenty" brought the expected angry reaction from some members of the bus-trolley union, which is deadlocked in contract negotiations.

Their accusations included that the story was a management "plant" to gain public support and influence labor negotiations.

It was "just another hatchet job" against Local 85, Amalgamated Transit Union, despite the fact that management employees were included.

Truth is, the idea for the story about how "no shows" are causing scheduling, overtime and other operational problems came from a Local 85 member.

In a Feb. 12 letter, he wrote to me: "When I got this job as a bus operator [a little over 10 years ago], they told us it was like hitting the lottery, and they were not too far off."

He said that on many days he and others do nothing because too many people are assigned to an "extra board." That is, operators who are assigned full shifts to substitute, if necessary, for colleagues calling in sick at the last minute, showing up late or absent for reasons such as jury duty, vacations, military leave and the Family Medical Leave Act.

His letter suggested it's time to look into the matter.

Port Authority management took several months to gather pages of information and statistics in response to questions about approved and unapproved leaves for union and nonunion personnel, work rules, arbitration case histories, overtime and related stuff, all part of documentation and research that go into major enterprise stories.

Various people from both management and the union were interviewed before the article was written. The PG reported that up to 50 employees habitually miss 40 to 60 days a year; that overall, absenteeism for reasons other than vacations and days off increased from 6 percent to 11 percent of the workforce between 2002 and 2007; and that $7.4 million paid in overtime last year, partly because of the absenteeism, is projected to grow to $9.2 million this year.

The Local 85 tipster wrote that while the union always gets the criticism, bad management is as much to blame for the situation.

"I'm not a regular union flag-waver since they usually only seem to defend the workers who have attendance or other abuse problems. But when sometimes over 20 of us are brought in for the extra board in one day at just one garage when there's work for only two or three, it seems no one is managing the budget. This happens very often. I figure that's wasting about $2 million a year.

"Please do not say [management is] strapped for funds when contract talks begin and state our wages may be frozen and we need to pay more for health care. Use the money that is wasted every day to offset these expenses.

"Also, I'm in favor of bringing back operators laid off a while ago, but not when we're sitting around looking at each other. However, the authority thinks differently, and some are being brought back now. Doesn't someone see what is going on?"

Responses to the article came to me from as far as Texas, where a senior manager of Dallas Area Regional Transit e-mailed, "We're having the same problem" with chronic absenteeism and abuse of the Family Medical Leave Act.

A reader from the North Hills wrote: "I have a few friends who work for PAT and it is an unwritten rule that you call off sick so other drivers can get your shift and the accompanying overtime. Privatize the thing and be done with it."

Two retired authority operators weighed in with e-mails. I'll withhold their names, too, as a courtesy, so they don't become targets of the same vindictiveness as Mr. Know-it-all.

Suffice it to say that one has been enjoying a $32,500-a-year authority pension and lifetime health-care benefits since retiring in his 50s in 1993 after 28 years of service. The other one retired after 23 years and been collecting a $28,500-a-year pension since 1994.

The former wrote as part of a diatribe: "Management would work us 15-16 hours and the next day they may have kept you around for three or four hours. Imagine having a job like that. Think about it. Also, I know someone with a bad back who was off on workers comp for years while he worked as a constable. When he came back, he was put in charge of a department in a newly created job. No politics here, right?"

The other retiree was more gracious, calling Monday's article "excellent" and saying the history of the problem and statistics were "accurate and to the point."

But ...

"Let the facts be known that it was management's decision to employ these individuals who do not want to work or abuse the sick leave policy.

"Do you think for one minute that the union wants to be degraded every time a contract has to be renewed? All I ever heard until I retired was, 'the lousy no-good-for-nothing union employees.'

"Yes, there were people who had no business driving buses, just as there were people who had no business managing the company. Lastly, please remember that politics plays a very important part of who gets what within the company.

"Tell the whole story."

Told.