L.I.R.R: the Most Dangerous Job... ?

In 2007, for carrier employees who retired from Long Island Rail Road (L.I.R.R) after age 50, 94 percent of them, including the white-collar, received disability benefits, while it’s 23 % for all other railroads companies. Is this because the jobs at L.I.R.R. are more demanding, difficult or even dangerous than at other places?

Having lived there for five years, I never noticed that it’s such a “dangerous” place. So, what’s going there? New York Times explores this situation in this article, “A Disability Epidemic Among a Railroad’s Retirees“.

This flash from New York Times, explains how an employee at L.I.R.R. earned three-day pay for one-day work. With all these compensations, the final annual salary can be five times of the regular salary.

If the money to pay for retirees’s occupational disability and the penalty payments for the salary is solely from the company itself, no one would question anything. Maybe envy their generous plan. But if it is not, then ??