Latest news with #railstrike
CBS News
21-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
New Jersey Transit trains back on track after strike, bringing customers a sigh of relief
New Jersey Transit riders happy to see trains back on track after strike New Jersey Transit riders happy to see trains back on track after strike New Jersey Transit riders happy to see trains back on track after strike NJ Transit is back on track — literally. Trains are up and running and have resumed their normal schedules following the first rail strike in decades in New Jersey. NJ Transit and the union representing engineers reached a tentative agreement on Sunday night. The strike started on Friday, and service was halted for four days, affecting the hundreds of thousands of people who rely on the system. "I am so pleased that the union and NJ Transit reached an agreement. Now it goes to the union to ratify, and it will then come to the NJ Transit board," said Kris Kolluri, NJ Transit president and CEO. Many passengers who spoke to CBS News Philadelphia said they are happy the strike is over because their backup plans weren't nearly as convenient or were too expensive. "Car was not an option for me. Amtrak was kind of expensive, so when this actually broke and got settled, I am like, 'This is so great, I get to enjoy the day,'" said Frank Giffone. He said he got tickets through a lottery to go to New York to see the Old City Hall train station in Manhattan for his birthday. "When this transit strike came around and popped up last week, I was like, 'Oh great. How am I going to get to Manhattan?'" he said Others said they are relieved travel will be smoother this week. "I am planning a trip to the airport this coming week, and I was a little nervous it was going to affect getting to the airport via public transportation," said Mackenzie Mueller from Washington.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NJ Transit strike deal reached — but riders should still expect a messy Monday commute
New Jersey Transit has reached a tentative deal with its striking union members on Sunday, but Jersey residents should still expect a messy Monday commute. Trains won't be up and running just yet — as the first NJ Transit strike in decades is set to end after midnight Tuesday, according to union and transit officials. 'I am delighted to report that NJ Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) have reached a tentative agreement and as a result, New Jersey's first rail strike in decades has officially come to an end,' Gov. Phil Murphy said during a press conference Sunday night. 'Starting Tuesday, May 20, NJ Transit will once again provide rail service to the more than 100,000 riders who depend on it every single day.' The transit agency and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen hashed out the final details of an agreement after two days of negotiations. The new contract comes after 450 union members walked off the job Friday after midnight, leading to a stressful commute for tens of thousands of New Jersey residents. 'This is a very good day for New Jersey. The sound that you probably hear is the sound of our commuters breathing a collective sigh of relief,' Murphy said. But the real relief won't come until Tuesday's morning commute. BLET leadership initially claimed the commuting nightmare was over and its workers 'will return to work and trains will begin running on their regular schedules Monday,' according to Politico, but NJ Transit, Murphy and a union rep later corrected the scheduling, saying trains won't start running until 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday. NJ Transit said the trains can't return until then because it takes about 24 hours for workers to 'inspect and prepare tracks, rail cars, and other infrastructure' before the rail service is back up and running after the pause. The transit agency's CEO Kris Kolluri once again urged Jersey commuters to work from home on Monday if they are able and said a surge of bus service would be in place to get essential workers to their jobs. The terms of the deal were not immediately known, as union members will get the first look at the terms before they are made public. The members still need to vote to ratify the contract. But both sides said the agreement included an increase in pay to employees without hitting riders' wallets. Murphy called the tentative deal 'both fair to NJ Transit's employees while also being affordable for our state's commuters and taxpayers.' The two sides were attempting to hammer out an agreement that would bump pay for the train engineers while not causing financial ruin for the embattled transit agency. BLET's General Chairman at NJ Transit, Tom Haas, said the union was able to negotiate a boost to hourly pay after the engineers had not had a new raise in five years. 'We also were able to show management ways to boost engineers' wages that will help NJT with retention and recruitment, without causing any significant budget issue or requiring a fare increase,' Haas said in a statement. The striking train workers and the Garden State's railroad company had 'constructive' talks Saturday, but couldn't come to an agreement before coming back to the table Sunday.
Bloomberg
19-05-2025
- General
- Bloomberg
NYC Bankers Living in NJ Face Monday Chaos Even After Rail Deal
New Jersey commuters were left to improvise plans for Monday even after negotiators reached a deal to end a three-day strike that halted rail service to New York. The deal reached Sunday with the union for New Jersey Transit locomotive engineers didn't allow enough time for service to resume Monday, officials said, citing the need for 24 hours to inspect tracks and equipment. Full operations are expected to restart Tuesday.
Washington Post
19-05-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
New Jersey rail strike ends with pay raise for workers, union says
A tentative agreement has been reached to end a New Jersey rail strike by raising the wages of locomotive engineers and trainees whose picketing halted the country's third-largest transit system and threatened to snarl New York City work commutes this week. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), whose three-day rail strike was the first in the state since 1983, said Sunday night that a deal had been struck after weekend negotiations with the NJ Transit managers. Trains will return to full scheduled service Tuesday after infrastructure inspections.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NJ Transit strike comes to an end with agreement between union and managers
The New Jersey Transit rail strike will end after the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and NJ Transit managers reached a tentative agreement Sunday. Trains will resume running on their regular schedules Tuesday, NJ Transit President and CEO Kris Kolluri said, ending the first strike at NJ Transit in over 40 years. Kolluri urged commuters to work from home Monday until full service picks up again Tuesday. NJ Transit buses will run as normal Monday. Kolluri said the company has a lot to do to ready the railway for safe passage after no use, including checking the railroads, pre-positioning equipment, conducting safety inspections and calling engineers back into work. 'This is an extraordinarily complex operation,' Kolluri said. 'We will never compromise the safety of our riders. For us, it is better to get it right and do it methodically than to rush and try to meet some artificial deadline.' New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy lauded transit managers' efforts at the negotiating table, saying he thought the deal 'landed in a really good place.' 'They have poured hour after countless hour into reaching an agreement that is both fair to NJ Transit's employees while also being affordable for our state's commuters and taxpayers,' he said at a news conference Sunday evening. The locomotive union said the strike, which began at 12:01 a.m. Friday, was a result of pay disputes, as 450 of its members who work for NJ Transit walked off the job. It brought the country's third-largest transit system, which services 350,000 riders, to a halt. It shut down NJ Transit trains, which carry around 100,000 riders each day. Talks between the union and NJ Transit officials had continued through the weekend. The terms of the deal now be sent to the 450 union members who work for the company. A ratification vote by the union and by NJ Transit is expected to follow, the union said. Tom Haas, the union's general chairman at NJ Transit, said the agreement would boost hourly pay higher than the April proposal by NJ Transit, which the union rejected, and higher still than where the proposal had stood Thursday night. The union has said its members were the lowest-paid locomotive engineers at any major passenger railroad in the country. It said NJ Transit engineers haven't had raises in the last five years. 'We're just looking for some sort of equal pay for equal work,' a striking locomotive engineer, who would not give NBC News his name under the union's rules, said Friday. The man said Amtrak and the Long Island Railroad pay around $10 an hour more. Murphy said the offer to the union before the strike was pay similar to that of engineers for the Long Island Railroad. Mark Wallace, the locomotive union's national president, said the union had 'the full support of our national union, as well as the Teamsters.' 'We also appreciated the outpouring of support we received from NJ Transit passengers and the labor community who know that NJ Transit's locomotive engineers keep the trains moving and went years without a raise,' Wallace said. He also thanked Congress for not interfering with the strike, which it is able to do under the Railway Labor Act. 'This should be a lesson for other railroad disputes. Nothing would have been gained by kicking the can down the road. Allowing strikes to happen encourages settlement rather than stonewalling,' Wallace added. Late Thursday, before the strike deadline, Murphy and Kolluri said they wanted a fair agreement for the union but added that they couldn't agree to a deal that might have been better than those of other unions in the NJ Transit system, because it would cause those unions to demand the same. 'It turns from something that is maybe a single-digit million or a low double-digit million fiscal reality into a nine-digit fiscal reality — and that's something that NJ Transit can't bear,' Murphy said at the article was originally published on
