New Jersey Transit’s rail riders got through four days without their trains, due to a work stoppage called by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), the union representing the engineers who drive the trains. Despite strong rhetoric by both sides leading up to the work stoppage (including from NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri and Gov. Phil Murphy), the strike lasted only three days. It began on Friday, May 16 and ended with a settlement announced the following Sunday. There were also no trains on Monday the 19th for inspections and other preparations to resume service on Tuesday.
The labor dispute was about money. The agency had previously reached agreement with all of the other railroad crafts, but not with the BLET. Engineers complained that they were not making as much as their counterparts at other regional railroads, including Metro-North and the Long Island Rail Road. The dispute had gone on for years, including the step of a Presidential Emergency Board that recommended a raise that the engineers considered inadequate. A tentative agreement was reached in March, but 87% of the union members who voted on the proposal rejected it.
At this writing, the trains are running, and the same members are voting on the deal reached on May 18. While details have not been disclosed, it has been reported that it includes a raise and some changes in rules, which means a giveback of some sort. Both sides will need to reopen negotiations if this deal is voted down. That could be difficult, because the management side warned of dire financial consequences if the engineers get too big a raise.
NJ Transit established four temporary park-and-ride locations for buses going into or toward New York for peak-period commuters. Those buses ran for only one day: Monday, May 19. Most rail riders were on their own to find ways to get to their destinations, especially if they did not have a bus line nearby. While the NJ Transit web site has a section on “ABCs” (Alternatives, Backups, and Contingencies), the Lackawanna Coalition published a Railgram Extra edition that listed possible alternative transportation in greater detail than the agency provided. Feedback from readers, including some NJ Transit employees was positive, and the Coalition demontrated that it also “knows its ABCs.”
The recent stoppage marks the second time that a labor dispute disrupted rail service on NJ Transit. The other one occurred in 1983 and lasted 35 days. It came in the wake of the termination of local rail passenger service operated by the Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) at the end of 1982, which Congress had mandated. NJ Transit Rail, along with Metro-North in New York State and SEPTA Regional Rail in and around Philadelphia, were all formed to take over the operations that Conrail had run. Negotiations included significant changes in work rules, and all three new railroads started with long strikes. The one on Metro-North lasted for 42 days, while the one at SEPTA lasted for 114 days. During that time, NJ Transit also established “emergency” peak-commuting-period bus service, with more locations than were operated on May 19.
Leave a Reply