Union Summer
Plus: Massie's race, self-driving cars, disputed bets, and more...
They're at it again: Yesterday, the unions representing the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) workers reached an agreement with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs the railroad. It's not yet clear what's in the agreement, but the demands of the striking workers were rather extraordinary: Pay raises of 5 percent, plus three years of retroactive raises since their last contract was hammered out in 2022. This might make sense if they were destitute, but they are not: "More than 325 Long Island Rail Road workers are raking in over $100,000 a year in overtime on top of their lucrative salaries, with 11 of them netting at least twice that huge figure in OT," reports New York Post (below yesterday's perfect headline: "Gravy Train").
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"The LIRR workers are already the best-compensated transit workers in the United States," the Manhattan Institute's Ken Girardin told the Post. Not wrong. Workers routinely game the overtime system to rake in huge amounts of cash beyond their (already-huge) union-negotiated sums: Supervising foreman Leonardo Espinosa, for example, earned $244,954 in overtime last year on top of his $129,483 salary. Jeffrey Davies (working the same role) brought in $233,808 in overtime on top of $130,291 base. And we haven't even started talking about pensions, and how overtime reporting factors in:
Sounds like they're working hard, right? Thing is though, LIRR has had repeated scandals about overtime fraud. And they look for ways to report massive overtime in their final years approaching retirement, massively spiking their pension payments for the rest of their lives. https://t.co/tYdzE4HZCA
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) May 18, 2026
The LIRR—with its 270,000 daily commuters—brings a lot of value to the many residents of New York City's eastern suburbs (even if it does us the disservice of bringing the Lawnguylanders in*). But in this case, like many others, unions representing public employees have bilked taxpayers.
But wait, there's more!
Yesterday, union representatives advocating for hotel housekeepers reached a deal with management: The average pay of housekeepers at New York City hotels will, per the terms of the agreement, increase to over $100,000.
"The owners of nearly 250 hotels in the city reached agreement with the union, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, on an eight-year contract that would increase wages by more than 50 percent for workers, union officials said," reports The New York Times. "The hotel owners will continue to pay the full cost of providing health-care benefits for 27,000 union members and their families." Here's another highlight: The new deal will "raise the pay of housekeepers from slightly below $40 an hour to more than $61 an hour by 2034."
New York City's average hotel room rates run around $335 a night. The union representatives seem confident that there's room for prices to be raised without demand being affected. I doubt this is true, and I think this type of market distortion will have bad results in the long run:
These feel like the early innings of UK-style destruction of the price mechanism.
Regulatory capture + unions extracting fees through means that are not legible to the general public. The results — college grads can't find work, but housekeepers get $100K+ — are counterintuitive https://t.co/8gIAg2GNKK
— John Loeber 🎢 (@johnloeber) May 18, 2026
*I am sorry for lightly poking fun at Long Island but I will not stop. My husband is from there, so I've seen a little too much.
Voters' choice: Today, freedom fighter and national debt lapel pin wearer Thomas Massie goes up against former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein in what has become the most expensive U.S. House primary on record down in Kentucky.
Followers of this newsletter are surely aware of how President Donald Trump absolutely hates Massie's guts. Massie has proven himself no sycophant, challenging the president first on the passage of a massive COVID relief bill, then on his spending, his relationship to Jeffrey Epstein, and his penchant for sinking boats in the Caribbean (the legality of which the Pentagon's internal watchdog will investigate).
Campaign spending has totaled over $32 million, mostly due to Trump-aligned and pro-Israel organizations attacking Massie. "Give me somebody with a warm body to beat Massie," Trump said back in March. ("And I got somebody with a warm body, but a big, beautiful brain and a great patriot," he followed up.)
"When President Trump needs backup, Massie wants to debate process," said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at a rally yesterday. "When the movement needs unity, especially at the biggest moments, Massie's willing to vote with Democrats." Yes. That's exactly why some of us like him: It's about principle, not blind allegiance to party. The role of a member of Congress is not to just give the president "backup."
"On Saturday, Trump successfully ousted Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., after recruiting and backing a primary opponent, GOP Rep. Julia Letlow," notes NBC News. "And earlier this month in Indiana, Trump helped unseat GOP state lawmakers whom he blamed for foiling his redistricting there." It looks very likely that Massie will be out come tomorrow, and Trump's power over Republicans in Congress will be further solidified.
Scenes from Texas: I got back from Texas yesterday, and on the transportation front, it's a glimpse of the future. I mentioned the peace of mind Tesla's self-driving capabilities gave me when having those cars around my toddler, playing on the driveway. But driverless Waymos have overtaken Austin, too (which may be in danger of being recalled due to an incident in nearby San Antonio where a car got swept away in floodwaters, thankfully with no person inside), and Tesla Cybercabs—two-passenger driverless robotaxis—could be seen on the road, though it's not clear whether they're legal yet or in testing or what. Uber seems like it's basically going to be replaced by driverless fleets, and soon. Meanwhile, in my city, Mayor Zohran Mamdani has stopped road testing of Waymos.
QUICK HITS
- "Disputed bets are a growing headache for prediction markets, including Polymarket, as they contend with a surge of new traders and dizzying growth in trading volume," reports The Wall Street Journal. "The platforms aim to write clear yes-or-no questions for traders to wager on. But the messiness of real-world events means it isn't always obvious which side was right." (More from "The Mysterious Crypto Judges Who Settle Polymarket Disputes.")
- It looks like Hungary might be trying to use the euro.
- "Cuba has acquired more than 300 military drones and recently began discussing plans to use them to attack the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military vessels and possibly Key West, Fla., 90 miles north of Havana," reports Axios, having received some classified intelligence.
- "Three people were killed at a mosque in San Diego on Monday in a shooting authorities said they were investigating as a hate crime," reports The Wall Street Journal. "Two teenage gunmen are believed to have killed three men, including a security guard, at the Islamic Center of San Diego, Police Department Chief Scott Wahl said at a news briefing Monday. Authorities said one of the shooters was a teenager whose mother reported him missing hours earlier."
- The only group of refugees the president seems to like:
SCOOP: The Trump administration is proposing increasing the refugee admissions ceiling for fiscal year 2026 to 17,500 for White South Africans, according to an emergency determination sent to Congress and obtained by CNN. That's an increase of 10,000.
— Priscilla Alvarez (@priscialva) May 19, 2026
- Kind of a strange rhetorical turn on Taiwan (and allegations of chip stealing make no sense):
Trump on Taiwan: When you look at the odds, China is very, very powerful, big country. That's a very small island. Think of it, it's 59 miles away. We're 9500 miles away. That's a little bit of a difficult problem. Taiwan was developed because we had presidents that didn't know… pic.twitter.com/bKhDQ65vTS
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 15, 2026
