Unions have helped to better the lives and working conditions of many people over the years. That cannot be disputed.

But a situation at Pittsburgh's Port Authority public transit system suggests why unions should not regard flexible work rules as something to be detested.

Partly because of work rule restrictions, the union looks like the bad guy in the loss of what potentially could be thousands of dollars of bank-interest earnings.

Almost as troubling is that the union and bus system cannot agree on the number of employee positions cut that is contributing to the problem. A bus system spokesperson says the agency cut two positions from the cash-counting department, where the current problem is centered, while a union official said five or six positions were job-cut victims.

Meanwhile, the transit system needs every dollar in its possession to be earning interest. It is anticipating a deficit at the end of the fiscal year.

A Pittsburgh newspaper on Wednesday revealed details of the inflexible-work-rule situation at the transit agency that has resulted in more than two dozen barrels containing up to $1.5 million in coins and bills sitting in an authority vault rather than earning interest at a bank.

Normally, the uncounted backlog is two to four barrels.

Agency officials were blaming the current problem on union employees taking too many days off. The 15 employees in the cash-counting department missed a total of 769 hours for illness, vacation, disability and family leave during December — that's 51 hours off work per employee in just one month.

"With the work rules we have, we don't have the ability to reassign people," Judi McNeil, the authority spokesperson, told the Pittsburgh newspaper. "We're stuck. So, yes, the cash barrels back up."

Jeff Davis, business manager for Local 29, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents the employees, agreed there is a significant problem but blamed the money-counting backlog on the staff cuts.

Davis said agency officials never have approached him with complaints about workers abusing time off.

At the foundation of the problem is that money cannot be dumped into counting machines without first having workers remove the crumpled and folded dollar bills and prepaid ticket stubs mixed in with the coins.

Some of the cash-counting employees are classified as "currency unfolders," so it would be a violation of work rules stipulated under the contract for anyone else to unfold currency and smooth out the bills.

McNeil said the number of dollar bills increased by 16 percent in January.

"We're seeing a higher volume of dollar bills and fewer people to count them," she said.

Taxpayers — those who ride the buses and those who don't — help fund public transit agencies through their tax dollars, and additional funding is being sought for the future. In the meantime, it is the proverbial "kick in the teeth" that while the Port Authority is crying for additional public money, it is shown to be inefficient and even incompetent when it comes to earning all of the interest revenue that is well within its reach.

The union should move to become part of the solution to this problem, rather than standing in the way of more flexible rules. Without changes, the problem will worsen.

The monthly loss stemming from the situation has been estimated at $5,000. That's not a big sum when factored into the overall authority operation, but it is not a sum to be pooh-poohed. But this preposterous situation suggests a tip-of-the-iceberg scenario.

The authority and union need to embark on serious discussions about how things are done at the transit agency. The union shouldn't be comfortable being the "bad guy" blamed for most of Pittsburgh's public transit woes.