New Jersey Transit Negotiations to Resume Saturday Afternoon
New Jersey Transit and the union that represents its train drivers will meet on Saturday afternoon, a day earlier than planned, to resume negotiations as the state's first transit strike in 40 years enters its second day, Kris Kolluri, the agency's chief executive, said on Saturday.
During a news conference at Newark's Pennsylvania Station on Saturday morning, Mr. Kolluri said that he planned to meet with representatives from the striking union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, at 1 p.m.
Plans for the meeting came together on Friday night, after the union's national president requested further negotiations. A pre-existing meeting with the National Mediation Board, the federal agency that coordinates labor relations in the railroad and airline industries, is planned for Sunday.
'We're going to meet the union today, we're going to meet them tomorrow, all with this goal of getting to a deal so we can get them back to work, get our customers the reliable service they need,' Mr. Kolluri said at the conference.
The meetings this weekend offer a glimmer of hope for a swift end to the strike. The stoppage has hobbled the transit agency, which operates the nation's third-largest commuter rail network, stranding thousands of commuters.
The strike officially began at 12:01 a.m. on Friday when the engineers walked out after contract talks stalled between their union and the transit agency. The two sides had been engaged in negotiations for months and, according to Mr. Kolluri, who has been leading the agency's bargaining team, had been 95 percent of the way to a deal, but reached an impasse on the issue of pay.
New Jersey Transit's engineers want to be paid on par with those at other commuter railroads in the area — including Amtrak, Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road — but Mr. Kolluri has said that the agency cannot afford those pay increases.
On Saturday, he doubled down on this point, adding that while he was eager to resolve the issue and put an end to the strike, the agency would not 'break the bank' to do so.
'We need to make sure we live within our means,' he said. 'The governor and I have said we will not make a decision on a labor contract that will leave the next governor a mess to clean up.'
The effects of the strike, the first of its kind in New Jersey in 40 years, were quickly felt on Friday morning, as fleets of passenger trains sat dormant in rail yards and frustrated commuters were forced to use expensive or inconvenient alternatives to get to work on time.
The transit agency has a contingency plan for the strike, which includes running supplemental buses to fill the gaps left by the rail lines, but the buses can transport only about one-fifth of the displaced train riders, according to the agency, and that plan does not go into full effect until Monday.
On Saturday, Mr. Kolluri offered a rosier review of the strike's first day. Despite some crowding, he said, the agency had been able to supply enough buses to absorb commuters.
'Our focus this entire time has been to make sure, in a calm and collected manner, we implement our contingency plan, which is what we've done,' Mr. Kolluri said.
Still, as the negotiations resumed this weekend, Mr. Kolluri prepared customers for the possibility that they would not end the strike, and he asked them to avoid going to work on Monday if they did not have to.
'If you can continue to work from home, it would be a hugely helpful moment for us in order to manage the volume,' he said.
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