New Jersey Transit Strikers and Engineers Resume Negotiations
New Jersey Transit CEO Kris Kolluri announced on Saturday that talks aimed at settling a strike between train engineers and the commuter railroad resumed. The strike began Friday, affecting 350,000 daily riders and forcing commuters to either work from home or find alternative ways to travel across the state or to New York City via the Hudson River.
Kolluri, speaking at Newark’s Broad Street Station, said the agency is preparing for the workweek commute by "surging" buses to help commuters at train stations. However, he cautioned that buses cannot handle the entire volume of the commuter rail system.
Kolluri and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen President Mark Wallace spoke and agreed to meet Saturday. It had been uncertain whether the two sides would meet ahead of a National Mediation Board meeting already set for Sunday.
"We’re going to meet the union today. We’re going to meet them tomorrow, with this goal of getting to a deal so we can get them back to work, get our customers the reliable service they need," Kolluri said.
Wallace confirmed in a phone interview that he and Kolluri would resume negotiations, which ended shortly before the strike Thursday night, on Saturday afternoon in Newark.
"If we come out together, we’ll have a deal," Wallace said.
NJ Transit has a train yard, just over the Delaware River from Trenton in the suburban Philadelphia town of Morrisville. Picketers in red shirts carrying signs and blaring music were present on Saturday.
Bill Craven, a 25-year veteran engineer, described the mood among union members positively. He said they usually don’t get to congregate because they are typically passing each other on the rails at 100 mph.
"Most of us would much rather be running trains. That’s what we do for a living. We don’t want to disrupt our lives, other people’s lives, but it comes to a point where we haven’t had a raise in six years," he said.
The walkout comes after the latest round of negotiations on Thursday didn’t produce an agreement. It is the state’s first transit strike in more than 40 years and comes a month after union members overwhelmingly rejected a labor agreement with management.
Wallace walked the picket line Friday outside New York City’s Penn Station. He said the engineers are committed to staying on strike until they get a fair deal. Union members were nearly unanimous in authorizing a strike last summer, and 87% of them rejected the latest agreement.
Wallace said NJ Transit needs to pay engineers a wage that is comparable to Amtrak and Long Island Railroad because engineers are leaving for jobs on those other railroads for better pay.
The union has seen steady attrition in its ranks at NJ Transit as more members leave to take better-paying jobs at other railroads. The number of NJ Transit engineers has shrunk from 500 several months ago to about 400. The engineers are responsible for operating trains, ensuring safe and smooth transport between stations, and maintaining the Newark airport, which has grappled with delays recently.
New Jersey Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy said Friday that it is important to "reach a final deal that is both fair to employees and at the same time affordable to New Jersey’s commuters and taxpayers."
NJ Transit is the nation’s third-largest transit system and operates buses and rail in the state, providing nearly 1 million weekday trips, including into New York City. The walkout halts all NJ Transit commuter trains, which provide heavily used public transit routes between Penn Station on one side of the Hudson River and communities in northern New Jersey on the other, as well as the Newark airport, which has grappled with delays of its own recently.
