NJ Transit strike continues as negotiations may resume this weekend

Yahoo

19-05-2025

The traveling calculus for New Jersey's straphangers has made difficult commuting on a normal day even more challenging without the option of NJ Transit train service, which came to a halt in the wee morning hours of Friday, May 16 as locomotive engineers walked off the job to protest stalled negotiations over a five-year-old expired contract.
Tom Haas, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said agency officials 'chose to walk away' from the negotiating table in the hours before the strike deadline, while Gov. Phil Murphy and NJ Transit President and CEO Kris Kolluri have said that a deal is 'imminently achievable.'
Yet both sides spent much of the first day of the strike cheerleading their positions with press conferences and picket lines. Negotiations to end the strike appeared to be set to occur over the weekend.
'It's a mess of their own making," Murphy said, referring to the locomotive engineers, from the Aberdeen-Matawan train station May 16. "It's a slap in the face of every commuter and worker who relies on transit."
Mark Wallace, the national president for the BLET who authorized the strike for his members, said, 'our members remain united and solidified,' and they are awaiting a call from NJ Transit to return to the negotiating table.
'We exercised our right under the Railway Labor Act to self-help and we're out there on the picket line essentially voicing the message that we're underpaid and NJ Transit to pay us a fair wage, but they refuse,' Wallace said.
NJ Transit has about 172,000 daily weekday rail commuters, but the effects of the strike will be felt by the roughly 350,000 NJ Transit riders across the system as buses are squeezed with more commuters, light rail trains get packed, and as people seek alternatives on private buses, ferries, PATH or Amtrak.
This is the second rail strike in the 42 years that NJ Transit has provided rail service. The first one came in 1983, the year the agency took over a variety of once-bankrupt railroads, and lasted 34 days.
NJ Transit's contingency plan to address the strike goes into effect Monday, May 19, and includes beefing up existing bus routes along rail routes and adding four new park-and-ride bus service at Hamilton Train Station, Secaucus Junction, PNC Bank Arts Center and Woodbridge Center — but only on weekdays. Newark Light Rail service will also be expanded.
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Straphangers had to weigh a variety of factors — like increased costs, transfers and the extra time traveling — as they figured out how to navigate a new commute sans rail.
Cynthia Battle gazed at the screen of schedules at Newark Penn Station as she considered travel adjustments.
"This is the first day so I'm trying to figure it out," Battle said.
"I travel to Plainfield and the city a lot," Battle continued. "I'm having to call a Lyft which is costing me $50, whereas the train would cost $10. As for the New York trip, I have to cancel that.'
Daniel, who did not provide his last name, was frazzled by the options he had at Newark Penn — none of them great.
'I don't know what's going on, it's crazy," he said. "I have to change multiple buses and it's an hour extra. I'm late for work.'
Laura Kounev of Summit usually took NJ Transit to work in the city but switched to PATH. It typically takes her an hour and 15 minutes door-to-door but May 16 will be over two hours as her husband got stuck in traffic on the way to pick her up, she said.
Live Schmidt, who works at Google and typically takes the train from Montclair to New York City, had to go into the office May 16 for an event but ended up missing it.
Schmidt intended to take an Uber but several drivers canceled on him causing him to miss the event and decided to just head back home. Still, he said he can adapt to the lack of trains.
"It's gonna be OK for the foreseeable future for me," Schmidt said. "But I can imagine others probably are feeling this stress a lot more."
NJ Transit and the engineers appear to be waiting for Sunday, May 18 to get back to the negotiating table.
Bargaining effectively ended about two hours before the strike began, which Kolluri said was a mutual decision after they reached an impasse despite some progress made in the 11-hour negotiating session Thursday, May 15.
The BLET 'put forward a proposal that seems fair to (them) but it doesn't solve our fundamental issue of fiscal responsiveness,' Kolluri said. 'I said, 'Why don't we do this, you take time to think about it, we'll take time to think about it, and then we'll continue talking to meet a solution.''
He added: 'We are making progress and we'll get there.'
The National Mediation Board — an independent Washington D.C.-based agency that handles labor negotiations in the railroad and airline industries — has been involved in recent bargaining sessions with NJ Transit and the BLET since the two sides were summoned by the board for a status meeting May 12. A member of the NMB suggested gathering Sunday.
The NMB, Congress or the president could intervene at any time with a wide range of tools to bring the parties together, impose a contract or force the engineers back to work, but so far those options haven't been tapped.
Bill Dwyer, a former head of labor relations at PSE&G and professor at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said 'it's going to take a lot of creativity' to get to a deal.
'Mediators can do some pretty great things, given a chance. On the other hand, they've been involved with the mediation board now for a long time and they've not made a deal yet,' Dwyer said.
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The main dispute in negotiations between NJ Transit and BLET has been over wages.
NJ Transit offered the engineers wage increases consistent with what it has offered the 14 other unions the agency bargains with, a concept known as pattern bargaining. But the engineers say they should make more to make them competitive with locomotive engineers at other nearby railroads, or else some will leave for those outfits, as they already have this year.
Kolluri said if the agency met the union's latest wage demands, it would have to offer more pay to its other unions because of 'me too' clauses, which could force drastic fare hikes, the need for a significant increase in the corporate transit fee or draconian levels of cuts in service to cover the costs. Haas said the union offered changes to healthcare plans or work rules to lower costs in their proposal and work around those clauses, but NJ Transit "chose to ignore that opportunity.'
NJ Transit engineers are currently paid a starting base hourly rate of $39.78.
Here is how other nearby railroads are compensated:
Amtrak: $55.44 per hour.
Long Island Rail Road: $49.92 per hour.
Metro-North: $57.20 per hour.
SEPTA: $42.17 per hour.
PATH: $50.01 per hour.
A tentative agreement from March, which was voted down by 87% of the union's voting members, would have brought the starting base pay rate to $40.58 per hour, and here's how it would have increased in the contract when accounting for additional pay in the contract. The agreement included two contract periods (July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2024, and July 1, 2024, through July 1, 2027):
July 1, 2020: a 2% increase to $40.58 per hour.
July 1, 2021: a 2.25% increase to $42.31 per hour.
Jan. 1, 2022: a 2.25% increase to $43.26 per hour.
July 1, 2022: a 2.50% increase to $44.34 per hour.
July 1, 2023: a 3% increase to $45.67 per hour.
July 1, 2024: a 3% increase to $47.03 per hour.
July 1, 2025: a 3% increase to $49.82 per hour.
July 1, 2026: a 3% increase to $51.32 per hour.
July 1, 2027: a 4% increase to $54.86 per hour.
These negotiations are 'not only historic, but it's also very unusual,' Dwyer said, because 'it's almost unheard of' to sign a tentative contract only to have it overwhelmingly rejected.
'That tells me something is really amiss here in terms of the union leadership and the membership,' Dwyer said.
Asked about this, Haas emphasized their union is a democratic organization that allows members to make their voices head via voting.
'We felt it was a deal worth putting to the membership,' Haas said, but 'that agreement simply did not meet the needs of engineers.'
Many state elected officials called on both sides to get back to the table and reach an agreement as soon as possible.
'So many residents are scrambling to find ways to get to work and back home to pick up their kids. This is a mess,' U.S. Sen. Andy Kim said. 'I have made clear to NJ Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen that they need urgent negotiations to continue immediately.'
State Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz is "severely concerned about the consequences of this strike on our residents and our businesses."
"Workers, students and seniors who cannot afford a ride-share or taxi will bear the brunt of this system breakdown and miss a day's pay, a medical appointment, or valuable time in the classroom," she said. "The longer this strike continues, the more it will harm our economy and deepen the very inequities public transit is meant to address."
Assemblywoman Nancy Munoz, a Republican from Summit, blamed the governor for what she called a 'full-blown train wreck' that is punishing riders for policy decisions of his administration. That includes a 15% fare hike last year, annual 3% fare increases starting this July, and the controversial decision to move the agency's headquarters to an expensive new space despite cheaper options, including renovating a building the agency owns.
'Time and again, when NJ Transit fails, it's the riders who pay the price,' Munoz said. 'This contract dispute should have been taken care of his first term. Once again it's the commuters who are suffering.'
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Transit strike continues as negotiations may resume this weekend