 "First in decades, New Jersey transit rail strike begins as wage talks collapse")
New Jersey rail engineers walked off the job on Friday after marathon contract talks stalled ahead of a midnight deadline, setting off a strike at a transit system that serves hundreds of thousands of commuters into New York City.
The commuter rail strike - the first to hit NJ Transit since a three-week walkout more than 40 years ago - went into effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT).
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which represents 450 NJ Transit engineers who drive the agency’s commuter trains, said a nonstop 15-hour bargaining session broke off when management negotiators walked out of the talks at 10 p.m. on Thursday. Wages are the key sticking point.
As the morning rush got underway on Friday, delays on the bridges, tunnels and ferries crossing the Hudson River into Manhattan were light, according to 511.gov, a website that monitors traffic flows.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and NJ Transit Chief Executive Officer Kris Kolluri said at a Thursday evening news conference that management remained willing to resume negotiations at any time.
“We must reach a final deal that is both fair to employees and affordable,” Murphy, a Democrat, told reporters. “Let’s get back to the table and seal a deal.”
Murphy and Kolluri said the U.S. National Mediation Board had reached out to both sides to propose reopening talks on Sunday morning, or sooner if the parties wished.
Impact Shorts
View AllA union statement made no mention of when talks might be restarted.
Members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen began picketing at 4 a.m. on Friday at three locations: the NJ Transit Headquarters in Newark, New Jersey; Penn Station in New York City and the Atlantic City Rail Terminal in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
Mark Wallace, the national president of the union, said on Friday that he was perplexed that NJ Transit management walked away from the bargaining table while claiming in a press conference that they would return to the table at any time.
“We presented them with a deal and they walked away,” Wallace said. “They chose to leave. We did not.”
He added that while talks are expected to resume on Sunday, the union would return to the bargaining table at any time if management agreed to do so.
Representatives of NJ Transit and the governor could not be immediately reached for further comment.
Worked urged to stay at home
Many commuters apparently heeded the advice of NJ Transit, the third-largest U.S. transit system, which urged commuters to work from home if possible.
When Miguel Gustave, a resident of Edgewater, New Jersey, who works for UBS, walked off his ferry in midtown Manhattan, he said he was unaware that the engineers had walked out. Asked if there were more people on the ferry, he said, “Actually less.”
At the Thursday briefing, the governor and the NJ Transit CEO outlined contingency plans for dealing with the work stoppage.
The looming strike had already prompted the agency to cancel trains and buses to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, for pop star Shakira’s concerts on Thursday and Friday nights.
The agency said it would increase bus services on existing lines and charter private buses to operate from several satellite lots in the event of a rail strike but warned that buses would only be able to handle around 20% of rail customers.
The labor clash came weeks after negotiators had agreed on a potential deal in March, but the union’s members voted overwhelmingly to reject it.
The union has said it was aiming to raise the engineers’ salaries to match those at other commuter railroads in the region.
NJ Transit has said it cannot afford the pay raises the engineers are seeking because 14 other unions that negotiate separate labor contracts with the agency would then demand higher wage rates for their members.
NJ Transit says the engineers currently make $135,000 on average and that management had offered a deal that would yield an average salary of $172,000. But the union has disputed those figures, saying the current average salary is actually $113,000.
The parties have exchanged accusations of bad faith bargaining.
Kolluri said last week that the union was “playing a game of chicken with the lives of 350,000 riders.”
“We have sought nothing more than equal pay for equal work, only to be continually rebuffed by New Jersey Transit,” Tom Haas, the union’s general chairman, said earlier this week.
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