The possibility of a New Jersey Transit strike is back in play, as locomotive engineers this week soundly rejected a labor agreement with the rail agency and set the stage for a potential work stoppage next month.
An overwhelming 87% of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union members voted against the tentative contract, calling for higher wages and highlighting that train crews have gone without a pay hike for six years.
“Our members are angry,” said Tom Haas, BLET’s general chairman representing engineers at NJ Transit. “I, along with other NJ Transit engineers, have kept the trains moving, but we have gone without a raise since 2019, during a period of high inflation and throughout the pandemic that claimed some of our coworkers.”
Union leadership and NJ Transit officials now have 30 days to come up with a new agreement, otherwise its members are authorized to strike starting May 15.
NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said in a statement he’s “disappointed” but “committed to returning to the bargaining table immediately and meeting every day, for as long as it takes, to get it done.” The late Tuesday union vote came just hours after Gov. Phil Murphy and the NJ Transit leaders held an event outlining plans to prevent delays and disruptions that commuters have come to expect during summer months.
The last time contract negotiations at NJ Transit flirted with a strike was in 2016, when the deal was sealed just hours before the deadline. Before that, the last railroad strike was 1983.
“It’s going to be back to the table for them to figure out what was missing, what are other demands the members have? And what is transit able to continue to do,” said Colleen Wilson, the transportation reporter at The Record/NorthJersey.com. “They’re in a tough spot as well, trying to be good stewards of the taxpayer money, but trying to provide wages that their engineers, who are valued members of their team, can be comfortable with.”
