‘Companies Are Cutting . . . Jobs in Michigan’
Since Big Labor-backed legislation repealing Right to Work protections for employees went into effect in early 2024, the state has gone from adding jobs to losing them.
Emergency Board Sides With Transit Union Bosses
But Congress Can Still Strike a Blow Against Big Labor Greed
Late this summer, top bosses of five government transit unions were threatening to strand 350,000 commuters in the New York City metropolitan area by shutting down the largest commuter railroad in the nation.
But on September 16, President Donald Trump temporarily headed off the threat of a crippling strike by establishing an emergency board to step into stalled contract negotiations between the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) and its locomotive engineer, machinist, and other unions.
Unfortunately, the recommendations made by this emergency board after several days of meetings in October with representatives of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), which oversees the LIRR, and government union officials were not helpful. However, these recommendations are nonbinding.
There is still time for citizens to call out transit union kingpins for current contract pay provisions and work rules that “drive costs through the roof,” as the New York Post accurately stated on September 13. And Congress retains the power to strike a blow against government union-boss greed.
Payroll Records Suggest ‘Overtime Champ’ Worked 40 Hours During a Single Day!
National Right to Work Committee Vice President Matthew Leen commented:
“For decades, MTA executives and Empire State elected officials have deferred to the diehard resistance of LIRR union bosses like Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers [SMART] President Anthony Simon against meaningful reforms of antiquated and counterproductive work rules.
“As one anonymous MTA insider has acknowledged to Post reporter Nolan Hicks, the monopoly-bargaining privileges afforded by law to Mr. Simon and his cohorts make them so powerful that it’s ‘just easier to light more taxpayer money on fire than fix’ LIRR.
“Largely because of anti-taxpayer, anti-transit rider union work rules, 259 unionized LIRR employees made over $100,000 in overtime alone in 2024, according to an investigative report published in Long Island’s Newsday on September 20.
“To show how this could happen, Newsday’s Alfonso Castillo focused on the pay records for a unionized train car repair worker who raked in nearly $240,000 in overtime in 2023.
“On a single day that year, pay records show, that employee supposedly ‘worked three eight-hour shifts at double time.’ On the same day, she was credited with working another ‘two eight-hour shifts at time and a half.’
“That’s 40 hours worked, but because of ‘double time and time and a half rates, she made 70 hours of pay,’ concluded Mr. Castillo!”
Future Federal Subsidies Should Hinge on Ending Outrageous Union Abuses
Mr. Leen added: “If numerous LIRR employees were actually working 24 hours or more in a row on a regular basis, as payroll records show, that would present a grave danger to public safety. But in all likelihood the reality is that LIRR is forking over vast sums of money for hours and days when the employee isn’t working at all.”
While LIRR is a state government agency, the Trump Administration’s intervention in its employee-management relations is legally fitting. Because of a quirky 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision, the MTA must follow the federal Railway Labor Act in its dealings with LIRR unions, and Presidents regularly get involved in RLA labor disputes.
Mr. Leen expressed cautious optimism that the Trump team would appoint a second emergency board, and that it would recommend work-rule changes in LIRR’s union contracts to stop systematic Big Labor rip-offs of taxpayers and transit riders.
But if future interactions among presidential appointees, the MTA, union officials, and New York state politicians don’t succeed in bringing about long-overdue changes in how LIRR operates, said Mr. Leen, the Trump Administration and its GOP allies in Congress have another card to play.
“Over the next several years,” he explained, “the MTA is counting on receiving $14 billion in federal funds for its 2025-2029 capital program.
“Making this aid contingent on ending outrageous union abuses in the MTA could be just what it takes to sway New York power brokers to stand up at last for the taxpayers who fund this agency.”
This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.
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