A labor dispute between NJ Transit’s locomotive engineers and the Backyard State transit company’s administration threatened to develop into New Jersey’s first rail strike in additional than 40 years, as a Friday morning deadline for engineers to stroll off the job loomed. Right here’s what commuters have to know:
Will NJ Transit engineers go on strike?
As of Thursday morning, NJ Transit administration and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen — the union representing about 450 Backyard State practice engineers — remained at odds.
BLET’s deadline for a decision earlier than strolling off the job is 12:01 a.m. on Friday morning. And regardless of each side assembly with federal mediators in Washington, D.C. on Monday, a Friday morning strike stays a robust risk.
A spokesman for the union confirmed that each side have been on the bargaining desk in Newark Thursday, together with a mediator from the Nationwide Mediation Board.
What are the engineers demanding?
An NJ Transit practice leaves the Secaucus Junction station in Secaucus, N.J., Wednesday, Could 14, 2025. (AP Photograph/Seth Wenig)
The disagreement comes all the way down to wages.
NJ Transit engineers say they need parity with their colleagues at Lengthy Island Rail Highway and Metro-North, whereas administration says that may lead each different union to ask for comparable raises and endanger the monetary safety of the company.
The MTA’s Lengthy Island Rail Highway, the place an engineer’s hourly price is $49.92, is the busiest of the nation’s commuter railroads. Metro-North, in second place, pays $57.20 an hour.
At the moment, NJ Transit engineers, who function the nation’s third busiest commuter system, begin at $39.78 an hour — a determine that features the NJ Transit engineers who function inside New York State on Metro-North’s west-of-Hudson traces.
The BLET and NJ Transit reached a tentative contract settlement in March, after working with no contract because the begin of 2020.
That settlement, in accordance with NJ Transit president Kris Kolluri, included a pay bump that may have seen BLET members earn $49.82 an hour by the summer time. However the contract was overwhelmingly rejected by the union rank-and-file, who voted it down by 87%.
However LIRR engineers are within the midst of their very own negotiations, and BLET’s N.J. boss, Tom Haas, has stated any parity with the Lengthy Island engineers would due to this fact be fleeting.
Within the occasion of a strike, will any NJ Transit trains be working?
No.
How else can NJ Transit riders get round?
Folks wait to board an NJ Transit practice on the Secaucus Junction station in Secaucus, N.J., Wednesday, Could 14, 2025. (AP Photograph/Seth Wenig)
Ought to practice traces develop into picket traces, NJ Transit is hoping to supply different methods to journey.
The state’s buses — whose unionized drivers simply reached a contract settlement with NJ Transit this month — will nonetheless be working, and NJ Transit administration is hoping to make use of them to ease the ache.
The transit company will run “park and ride” routes, with NJT buses taking individuals from Secaucus Junction to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, from the Hamilton rail station to Newark Penn’s PATH station, and from the Woodbridge Mall to the Harrison PATH station.
Non-public contractor Academy Bus may even function a park-and-ride from the PNC Financial institution Arts Middle in Holmdel to the Port Authority Bus Terminal — however Academy is not going to be accepting NJ Transit tickets.
Bus service will likely be elevated on a sequence of normal New York-bound routes, and NJ Transit rail tickets to or from New York, Newark or Hoboken will likely be cross-honored on NJ Transit buses and the Hudson-Bergen Gentle Rail.
How lengthy might a strike final?
It’s unclear. NJ Transit rail strikes are a rarity.
An NJ Transit rail dispute appeared headed for a strike again in 2016, however eleventh-hour negotiations averted a piece stoppage.
The Backyard State’s engineers final hit the picket traces in 1983, after they struck for 34 days.
