LIRR Unions Just Exposed the Public Sector Extortion Racket Bankrupting New York Taxpayers
Note: This post addresses specifically the recently concluded Long Island Rail Road strike in New York. The city and state of New York have become a clear case of fraud and extortion by the public service unions of the city and the state of New York against the taxpayer. I will deal with this issue in a more comprehensive piece in the near future.
The Long Island Rail Road strike that paralyzed America’s busiest commuter line for three straight days exposes a disgusting truth: public employee unions in New York treat taxpayers as a rigged ATM machine. Roughly 3,500 workers from five unions shut down the railroad on May 16, 2026, because the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) would not cave to their demands for a 14.5 percent raise over four years. These same workers already rake in an average of $150,000 a year in total pay, with overtime routinely topping $100,000 for hundreds of them. That is not market wages earned in a free economy. It is the filthy payoff from monopoly power, backroom sweetheart contracts, and the corrupt revolving door between unions and the Democratic politicians who cash their checks and sign the bloated deals.
Look at the numbers and the rules that make this possible. LIRR employees earned an average of $121,646 in base pay plus $25,957 in overtime in 2024, according to Empire Center data, while per capita personal income in Suffolk County sits at just $92,113. Their contracts let workers collect double pay for operating both electric and diesel trains on the same shift or working a rail yard and a train in one day. A carpenter cannot change a light bulb without calling an electrician for four hours of premium time. Most New York public employees cannot strike under the Public Employees’ Fair Employment Act (Taylor Law), but the LIRR falls under the federal Railway Labor Act and can. Either way the result is the same: unions face no real market discipline, and when talks stall the process funnels through panels stacked by the same governor elected with union money. There is no taxpayer seat at the table. This is not bargaining. It is legalized extortion dressed up as labor relations.
This scam must end. Elected officials have no business handing out pay, benefits, or work rules that exceed what the exact same skills command in the private sector, period. Until New York adopts that simple market-based rule, unions will keep looting the budget, commuters will keep getting stranded, and taxpayers will keep fleeing to states that still respect limited government and fiscal sanity. The LIRR mess is not an isolated labor dispute. It is Exhibit A of why public service employees in this state enjoy compensation that would be illegal anywhere else. Enough is enough.
This is exactly what happens when big intrusive government owns , operates and controls the public infrastructure . All of these operations should be retuned back to private enterprise .
Even though the USA is suppose to be considered a capitalistic free market country ,the reality is that the USA is a mixed economy : half capitalism and half socialism . The advocates for big intrusive government often complain about monopolies , yet our government remains the biggest monopoly .
The job of our government is to protect the life. Liberty , and pursuit of happiness of the people they govern . It is not the job of the government to monopolize industries and make the people over pay for their services . There should be a complete separation of the economy from the state .