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Engineers at New Jersey Transit went on strike early Friday, bringing trains on the nation’s third-largest commuter rail service to a halt.
A final day of negotiations between the state-run commuter rail service and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) failed to reach an 11th hour deal to prevent a strike.
The work stoppage is poised to severely inconvenience some 100,000 daily rail commuters, businesses across the New York metropolitan area, and fans of Shakira and Beyoncé, who will have trouble getting to concerts the two stars have planned at a football stadium just outside of Manhattan in the coming days.
Talks between the two sides ended slightly before 10 p.m. ET Thursday, according to both the union and NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri, who appeared at a press conference late Thursday night with NJ Gov. Phil Murphy.
Kolluri told the press conference late Thursday that the two sides had been close to reaching a deal but could not reach agreement on a wages package that the state and NJ Transit management believes is affordable. He said the two sides are due to return to the negotiating table by Sunday morning, and that he is ready to return to the the table before then if the union is willing to do so.
Kolluri and Murphy both said they want an agreement that is fair to the union members, but not one where the demands of the unions would cause financial problems for the railroad.
A previous tentative labor deal had been rejected by 87% of the nearly 500 members of the union who drive the trains. While that deal would have given workers their first raise since 2019 and thousands of dollars in backpay for each union member, it still would have left members far short of the pay of engineers at Amtrak and nearby commuter railroads that use the same stations.
“NJ Transit has a half-billion dollars for a swanky new headquarters and $53 million for decorating the interior of that unnecessary building,” BLET National President Mark Wallace said in a statement. “They gave away $20 million in revenue during a fare holiday last year. They have money for penthouse views and pet projects, just not for their front-line workers. Enough is enough. We will stay out until our members receive the fair pay that they deserve.”
NJ Transit officials said they had increased bus service in anticipation of the strike but admitted buses would only be able to handle an “extremely limited number” of commuters. The agency and Murphy urged commuters who ride its trains to make other plans or work from home, if possible. NJ Transit said commuters should limit traveling on the rest of the system to “essential” purposes only.
“If you can work from home, certainly tomorrow (Friday) …would be a really good day to do so,” Murphy said.
Murphy said that while the engineers are a backbone of the state’s transit system, “the workers and families who rely on our transit system every single day are the backbone of our entire economy.”
Besides the traffic congestion that will likely clog the bridges and tunnels that span the Hudson River as a result, many commuters to Manhattan will be hit with a “congestion pricing” toll of up to a $9 in addition to bridge and tunnel tolls that can cost more than twice that amount.
Beyond the daily commuters traveling mostly to and from Manhattan, the strike could cause huge problems for concertgoers. Shakira is set to perform Friday night at MetLife Stadium, located in New Jersey less than 10 miles from the Lincoln Tunnel that links the state with Manhattan, and Beyoncé is due to perform there for a series of five shows starting next Thursday.
NJ Transit had already canceled special service to Thursday night’s Shakira show, out of concern fans could be stranded after the strike starts.
Concertgoers who drive to the Shakira or Beyoncé shows could find themselves stuck in worse-than-normal traffic as would-be train passengers are forced onto the roads.
The union has argued that its members need a significant raise to bring them in line with other engineers at other passenger railroads and that members would not accept anything less.
“We, the locomotive engineers of NJ Transit are asking only for a fair and competitive wage,” said Thomas Haas, the general chairman of the union’s unit representing the 450 engineers at the railroad, in remarks Wednesday night before the meeting of NJ Transit’s board. “The last thing we want to see is that (service) to be interrupted. But we’re at the end of our rope.”
The union says its current contract demands would cost only $4 million more per year compared to management’s previous contract offer that was rejected by members. A strike, it added, will cost the railroad more than meeting the union’s offer.
But Kolluri said that if NJ Transit agreed to BLET’s demand, it would have to offer the same pay raises to other unions under “me too” clauses in their own labor deals. Murphy said those clauses would raise additional costs from less than $10 million a year to more than $100 million a year for the agency, and that it could not afford to pay that amount.
“I told them I respect the offer they put on the table,” Kolluri said. “I respect the fact that we came close to reaching a wage rate that they think they’re entitled to. Where we could not bridge the gap is this ‘me too’ clause.”
Kolluri said he still thinks a deal can be reached soon to end the strike. “This is not a lost cause,” he said. “This is an imminently achievable deal.”
BLET also said the contract rejected by members would have left their pay about 20% behind that of engineers at Amtrak and three other nearby commuter railroads: Long Island Railroad, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) and Metro North, which serves the suburbs north of New York City.
That’s part of the reason why the union says it continues to lose members. Membership has fallen from 500 at the start of the year to 450 as members leave NJ Transit for those other railroads. And that loss of engineers is also costly, according to the union.
It says it takes two years of training at $250,000 each to replace those who leave, while NJ Transit will be forced to cancel trains due to the lack of engineers. NJ Transit insists it has sufficient staffing to operate the railroad’s full schedule.
Railroads operate under an arcane century-old federal law, the Railway Labor Act, that controls labor relations at railroads and airlines, greatly limiting the union’s ability to go on strike. Even when members of a union reject a contract, as has happened in this case, they can be ordered to stay on the job and accept the terms of the deal through an act of Congress.
That’s what happened in December 2022, when Congress voted in favor of a deal rejected by the majority of the more than 100,000 union members who work at the nation’s four major freight railroads.
But Congress may not feel as compelled to act in the case of a single commuter railroad. While Congress has not allowed the nation’s freight railroads to have a strike longer than a few hours, there have been numerous commuter rail strikes that have stretched on for weeks, even months, without Congressional action to end it. So far, there has not been any legislation introduced that would block or end a strike, so any Congressional action would take time.
In 1983, union members at New Jersey Transit were on strike for one month. Also in the 1980s, there were strikes that lasted 108 days at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA), for 42 days at Metro North and 11-days at the Long Island Railroad.
This story has updated with additional reporting and context.
