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Three Day Strike for Three Years Pay · Stuff Keeps Happening

0:00
Hello. I spilled some water on my shirt. But
0:04
stuff still happened. So what's up? Video watcher
0:08
types of this episode can have a fun time playing
0:10
a little mini -game called Watch the Spot on
0:13
My Shirt Dry over the course of the recording.
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I do it for you. We're gonna start with something
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good. It turns out collective bargaining works.
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Who would have thought? A coalition of five different
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labor unions who all work for the same railway
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in New York went on strike, bringing the railway
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to its knees. Which is to say... People couldn't
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take the rail two ways. Let's back up. What what's
0:35
going on? I just I'll beat that's fair. I jumped
0:38
way too fast into this one Let's set the stage
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and talk about the players in this story You've
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got the MTA that is New York State's Transit
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Authority And you've got a coalition of five
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different labor unions who all work on this one
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railroad the Long Island Railroad LIRR or I guess
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Lear, if you really want. This coalition of workers
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represented about 3 ,500 people. It's about half
1:00
of the employee base of that railroad. And they
1:03
said, hey, we haven't been paid. Like, we haven't
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gotten a raise since 2022. I did some back of
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the napkin math. That was four years ago. Further
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back of the napkin math shows that that's not
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OK. I then flipped the napkin over and did more
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math. And the result was just pay people a living
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wage. So yeah, the MTA has not been keeping up
1:25
with raises for these people that make this critical
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railway, one of the largest commuter rails in
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the nation, operate. So they went on strike and
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caused what the Comptroller of New York State
1:35
estimates was about 60 million dollars of economic
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damages a day. Because it helps to keep your
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rails running. Even in a country with basically
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no rail. So here's what's been going on. The
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MTA and the union workers have been trying to
1:49
come to a new agreement for years. A lot of these
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unions had upcoming contract renewals, and they
1:54
were like, hey y 'all, we need to be able to
1:57
fund our lives. Like, where's our rates? They
2:00
were also upset with a bunch of new rules that
2:01
the railroad had recently put into place, so
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they went on strike. And it only needed to go
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for three days before the MTA buckled. During
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that time... They really interrupted a lot of
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service, I mean three days worth of service,
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but ultimately they won raises and back pay dating
2:17
back to 2023. The raises are not the entirety
2:21
of what they were looking for, it's a little
2:22
bit below what they are asking for, but the fact
2:25
that they're getting back pay as well and also
2:27
a bunch of other concessions, that's pretty big
2:29
for three days. Granted that's three days after
2:32
years of negotiation, but still. Now there's
2:35
another part of this that I want to talk about.
2:37
This has been going on long enough that multiple
2:39
independent commissions were sent to try to figure
2:42
out what's going on here and just sort out the
2:44
beef. Multiple presidential emergency boards
2:47
were sent to go settle this before any of this
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happened. And what that board found was that
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the MTA was operating with at least a $700 million
2:57
surplus in the past year, whereas the total value
3:00
of the requests from all of the union workers
3:02
for all of the raises they wanted was less than
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20 % of that surplus. To really drive this point
3:08
home, the Presidential Emergency Board, the president
3:11
there refers to the POTUS, Donald Trump. Even
3:14
Trump's own people looked at this and they were
3:16
like, yeah, that's fucked. Pay the workers. That
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is a high bar to clear. There was pushback from
3:21
the state and the MTA from a couple of different
3:23
angles. One was, oh, if the union workers want
3:26
more pay, we're going to have to raise fares.
3:28
And that's just not, that's not right for all
3:30
the commuters. They're going to have to pay more
3:31
money. Which, I'll get to that in a second, but
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the other angle they were going at it with is,
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ugh. They're not supposed to be able to strike,
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because they're public sector workers, and according
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to New York State law, they're not allowed to
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strike. Unfortunately for the state, there is
3:44
a federal law, the Railway Labor Act, that mandates
3:47
these people are allowed to strike. So it's a
3:48
bit of a gray area, but it's actually not a gray
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area they can strike, and also shouldn't be not
3:53
allowed to in the first place. So here comes
3:55
the governor of New York being like, oh, these
3:57
people are they're already paid so well. And
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this this strike is just. That's a helicopter.
4:08
Flying. I'm trying to record. Anyway, so here
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comes the governor of New York being like all
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these people they're they're already paid really
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well And also they're they're not supposed to
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strike like this and also if they do strike We're
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just gonna have to raise the prices and that's
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gonna mean that everyone's gonna be mad at them
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as their fault and then that didn't happen and
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the concessions were made in fair prices are
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not going up this is because That was bullshit.
4:40
Here's a quote from the report from that presidential
4:42
board that I talked about before. Overall, it
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appears that the fiscal capacity of the LIRR
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and of the MTA has increased in recent years,
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and in particular since the PEB 253 report. The
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PEB 253 report was another report from another
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commission the year prior on the same thing.
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Just trying to be like, hey, uh, pay the workers.
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That's all ultimately striking works and the
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fear -mongering that they love to push about
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all the strikes are Unfair to the people who
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are gonna be negatively impacted by the lack
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of service like dog It's three days of inconvenience
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for three years of back pay for thousands of
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workers who've essentially had their wages stolen
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Well done solidarity moving up. Let's talk about
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Trump's new bank account Three decades ago in
5:51
2019, a then contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton
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working at the IRS, whose last name was literally
5:57
Little John, leaked Trump's tax returns. The
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helicopter's back. This is actually the fourth
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time during this recording. So this guy, who
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I'm going to just refer to as Little John, works
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at the IRS seemingly explicitly just to yoink
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a bunch of tax returns for high -profile people.
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In between heavy sessions of remodeling using
6:15
galvanized steel, Little John decided to leak
6:18
this information to various outlets, including
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the New York Times. The New York Times published
6:22
these tax returns in 2020, leading to Trump getting
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very big mad. Fast forward a bit, and you've
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got Trump back in office. Somehow that happened.
6:32
And with him back in office, he's like, hey,
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guys, I'm going to sue the government for damages
6:37
about my whole tax return thing to the tune of
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$10 billion. So Trump, as president, sues the
6:44
government that he is at the head of for $10
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billion over his tax returns being leaked when
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he said he was going to release them anyway.
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Anyway, he ends up not going through with that.
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Rejoice. The president's not going to pillage
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$10 billion worth of taxpayer funds. What's actually
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happening is that he decided to pull that case
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before a judge can make any determination and
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instead take a settlement from the DOJ. The Department
7:08
of Justice settlement sets up a $1 .8 billion
7:11
slush fund, essentially, that political people
7:15
in Trump's orbit can apply for payouts from.
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And just to top it all off, right after they
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announced that, the acting attorney general,
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Todd Blanch, who was also formerly Trump's personal
7:25
attorney, signed an addendum to that settlement,
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saying also the DOJ can't investigate Trump based
7:32
on prior investigations and findings. It's as
7:35
ridiculous as it sounds. I want to say that there's
7:38
been a lot of discussion about this and a lot
7:39
of framing of this situation, saying that this
7:42
is a $1 .8 billion slush fund to pay January
7:46
6th people. That is messy. It is effectively
7:51
a 1 .8 billion dollar slush fund. In fact, it's
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actually 1 .776 billion dollars because 1776,
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because of course they did that. For those who
8:00
are not free like me, 1776 is an important year
8:05
in American history. So what we have here is
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a essentially $1 .8 billion fund that people
8:11
can apply for payouts from, claiming that the
8:14
Biden administration unfairly attacked them using
8:17
the Department of Justice. That theoretically
8:19
includes January 6 people who are going to probably
8:21
apply for this, and probably some of them are
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going to get payouts, maybe even a lot of them.
8:26
But it's not just a payout thing for January
8:28
Sixers, it is Trump wanted to pull money out
8:31
of the government via taxpayers, and when that
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one option was obviously not going to work well,
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he just set up a fund to pay out to whoever he
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wants. The fund is overseen by a board of five
8:42
people, all of whom are Trump appointees, one
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of which is appointed in collaboration with Congress,
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and Trump can get rid of any of them at any time.
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So five Trump appointees choose who gets money
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from this $1 .8 billion pool. And the only oversight
8:57
is they're going to send a memo to the attorney
8:59
general once a quarter saying who got what. The
9:02
fund is also set to close in the last month of
9:05
Trump's term before the next president. And also
9:08
they're like, guys, we can totally do this because
9:11
the money is already earmarked for payouts, which
9:14
is half true. And also Obama did it too, which
9:18
is not. accurate. Obama is a war criminal who
9:22
did way too many drone strikes. And also, the
9:25
thing they're referring to is an Obama era program
9:28
that was kind of similar, but it rolled out of
9:30
a bunch of public court cases and had very strict
9:33
public auditing requirements. This is money that
9:37
is allocated because they said, trust me, bro,
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we can allocate this. And also the only oversight
9:42
is some dude gets a memo. Now, a lot of people
9:44
are saying this is illegal. And I would just
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respond with, okay. That hasn't stopped them
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so far. It's gonna get challenged, it's gonna
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get pushed back, everything that this administration
9:54
does is break the law as hard as you can, roll
9:58
it back, break the law in a slightly different
10:00
way, while people are still debating whether
10:01
or not you broke that first law, and just try
10:04
to get everyone distracted until you move on
10:06
to the next boring thing. But during that distraction,
10:08
there's a lot of real people working really hard
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to push back on all of this and there have been
10:12
results. So we'll see. I have every belief that
10:16
this is just going to be a big win for the White
10:18
House. Like it's free money for them and red
10:20
meat for their base because they get to be like,
10:22
yeah, we're going to give billions of dollars
10:24
to the January six people. It's like it's a genuine
10:27
win win for them unless someone's going to stop
10:29
them. Moving on to the wild world of regional
10:34
energy oversight board elections. Buckle the
10:37
fuck up! The Salt River Project is an electric
10:39
utility provider for the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan
10:42
area. It's one of the biggest energy providers
10:44
in the country. It also pretty uniquely doesn't
10:46
have a traditional oversight board from a department
10:48
in the state. It has its own oversight board,
10:51
and there were recently elections for said board.
10:54
These elections were strangely intense and pitted
10:57
a bunch of climate activist aligned people against
11:00
a bunch of people who were backed by literally
11:02
Turning Point USA. Turning Point Action, the
11:05
political action committee side of Turning Point,
11:07
they were putting tons of money and energy into
11:11
trying to get these people elected to the board
11:13
of this regional energy provider. It didn't work.
11:18
Yay. The election results came in and the people
11:20
who were aligned with green energy and renewables
11:23
and new initiatives and stuff like that, they
11:25
got most of the seats. It's now eight, six leaning
11:28
towards the green energy aligned people. This
11:30
is the first time ever that this energy oversight
11:32
board in Arizona, which sets policy about energy
11:35
and rates and stuff, is primarily filled with
11:39
people who actually believe in renewable energy.
11:43
In Arizona, Where the Sun lives? So that's cool
11:47
and great. You might be wondering why the fuck
11:49
is turning point involved in a Phoenix local
11:53
energy board election? Well asked. You did a
11:56
good job. The answer is that the COO of turning
11:59
point was like, yeah, we were trying to like
12:01
turn out the vote ahead of the elections in the
12:03
midterms and stuff. Oops. Granted, the president
12:06
and vice president seats on this board both ended
12:09
up going to the turning point candidates. And
12:11
the reason why is wild. Well, most of the seats
12:13
on this board are a one -to -one vote of homeowner
12:16
to vote. The president and vice president seats
12:19
are weighted based on owned acreage. If you are
12:23
a landowner who has a ton of land, your vote
12:27
matters much more than a homeowner with like
12:30
half an acre. And if you're not a homeowner,
12:32
you just don't get to vote. It's basically feudalism.
12:35
So while the clean energy candidates all won
12:37
the one -to -one votes by a landslide, the president
12:40
and vice president had a much more contested
12:42
race because it was heavily weighed by people
12:45
who have a ton of land. Thankfully, those seats
12:48
are not actually as important as they may seem.
12:50
They just cast tie -breaking votes. So this may
12:53
actually lead to some good stuff for energy policy
12:56
in the region. Congratulations, Arizona. Right.
13:01
Measles. In 2025, we saw the most measles cases
13:03
in America since the early 90s. 2026 is on pace
13:07
to beat that. There are more and more measles
13:09
outbreaks happening around the country. And I
13:11
want to be clear, I'm not trying to like fear
13:12
monger right now. I'm not saying that measles
13:14
is about to take over the world. But it shouldn't
13:18
be trending this way. It's likely that the United
13:20
States is going to lose measles eliminated status.
13:23
That means that it's likely coming back in a
13:26
meaningful way. We had previously eliminated
13:29
it, not eradicated. Eradicated is different from
13:31
eliminate. Eradicate means it's gone, gone. Eliminate
13:33
means it's effectively gone. But it looks like
13:35
this year, we're likely to lose the status of
13:37
having eliminated it. And we're not alone in
13:41
that. Canada has already lost that status. A
13:43
bunch of other countries have already lost that
13:44
status. But, again, it shouldn't be trending
13:47
this way. I could litigate all over again RFK
13:50
Jr. and all of the craziness that I endured during
13:54
election season when people were claiming that
13:56
he was somehow not an anti -vaxxer, which is
13:58
the wildest claim that I still don't understand
14:01
how anyone believed. The guy is loudly a self
14:03
-proclaimed anti -vaxxer. I don't know, guys.
14:07
Immunizations against measles have been ticking
14:09
down, and in 2020, the immunization rate among
14:12
kindergartners dropped below 95%, which is the
14:15
herd immunity level. When you're above 95 % immunization,
14:19
the people who can't otherwise get vaccines are
14:21
safe because of herd immunity. The people who
14:24
are vaccinated are more likely to prevent the
14:27
spread, helping those people out. But when you
14:30
drop below that 95 % number, it starts to tick
14:32
up until it just becomes a problem. And it's
14:35
now a problem. RFK Jr. is a dangerous grifter
14:39
who is somehow the Secretary of Health and Human
14:41
Services in the United States of America. He
14:43
has spent the better part of his time on this
14:45
earth trying to convince the masses that life
14:48
-saving medical research is actually dangerous.
14:51
He is now in a position of power, and he's trying
14:53
to enact those views using policy. And it's working.
14:56
And we're seeing those results. Thankfully, he
14:59
is a dumbass who is wrong, and his dumb and also
15:02
wrong ass is dumb and wrong about the measles
15:05
vaccine. and vaccinations pretty much in general.
15:08
So far this year, of the nearly 2000 confirmed
15:11
cases, 92 % of them have been unvaccinated or
15:16
unknown vaccination status. And a quick glance
15:19
at a chart of measles cases from the 90s until
15:22
now shows that it worked. It really wasn't a
15:26
problem. And now it's taking back up the second
15:29
that people are like, you know what, I really
15:31
do think that I'm just going to not vaccinate
15:33
anymore. Weird. Again, the absolute numbers are
15:35
pretty low, and if you are vaccinated, the chances
15:38
of you being affected are also very low. But
15:42
just be aware that this is still a thing. It's
15:45
trending in the wrong direction. I don't want
15:47
to scare people, but this shouldn't be happening.
15:50
Real quick on the topic of war, I'm not even
15:52
going to try to say anything about Iran right
15:54
now because it's constantly changing, but that's
15:57
all still going on. I'm currently kind of looking
15:59
at the whole Cuba situation because the Trump
16:02
administration has spent most of the past couple
16:04
of years talking about wanting to do something
16:07
with Cuba. And as I was writing the draft for
16:09
today, they announced an indictment of Cuba's
16:11
former president over a thing that happened in
16:15
the 90s. In 1996, a group of US -based Cuban
16:19
exiles started flying prop planes over Cuba to
16:22
drop propaganda pamphlets encouraging people
16:24
to rise up against the government. And Cuba shot
16:27
down some of these planes. And the US got big
16:29
mad. And now they're using that to indict their
16:32
former leader. It is very likely that the Trump
16:34
administration is going to try to pull a Venezuela
16:37
with Cuba or do something. Marco Rubio has been
16:41
salivating at the idea for a long time. But honestly,
16:44
I think one of the biggest reasons that they're
16:45
not going after Cuba right now is because if
16:47
we attacked Cuba, the resulting humanitarian
16:50
crisis would create a flood. of migrants going
16:53
directly to Florida. Imagine Florida, a MAGA
16:57
hotbed. The people who voted for the guy that
17:00
was like, hey, no new wars and deport the brown
17:02
people. Starting a war that causes brown people
17:06
to come to our shores. I think they're trying
17:08
to figure out how that math will work. Lightning
17:10
round. The judge in the case of Luigi Mangione
17:13
has thrown out a good bit of evidence, citing
17:15
that the police were real bad with the way that
17:17
they handled the actual arrest. Sony is joining
17:20
Nintendo and Amazon in facing class -action lawsuits
17:23
over people saying that they profited illegally
17:25
off of the tariff situation. You know, like,
17:28
the tariffs happened and so Sony was like, hey,
17:30
PlayStation's cost more. And the tariffs were
17:32
struck down. And Sony was like, hey, U .S. government,
17:34
give us our money back. Meanwhile, consumers
17:37
still paid more. Twitter has a new rule that
17:40
non -paid accounts can only post 50 times a day
17:42
and reply 200 times a day. Side note, get off
17:46
Twitter. There was a man in Tennessee who was
17:48
held in jail by the sheriff after posting a meme
17:50
online about Charlie Kirk after Charlie Kirk
17:53
was shot. While he was being held, he missed
17:55
his wedding anniversary and the birth of his
17:57
grandchild. But he's now out and just won an
17:59
$835 ,000 settlement. Get that bag. And finally
18:04
for today, someone tried to drive a Cybertruck
18:07
into the water believing the marketing from Tesla
18:10
that the Cybertruck can do that. He wanted to
18:13
drive across the water, but instead drove himself
18:15
to jail. Uh, he got arrested. For that. Don't
18:20
do that! Thank you so much for listening to today's
18:22
episode of Stuff Keeps Happening. Head to skh
18:24
.news for sources, bonus content, and a schematic
18:28
for a cardboard Cybertruck that does actually
18:31
float. My name is Endeavorance, we'll talk again
18:34
soon, take care, and be well.