NJ Transit strike ends as engineers approve tentative deal
The NJ Transit strike is over after the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen approved a deal Sunday. Train service will resume on Tuesday.
The strike halted trains across New Jersey for three days before the tentative agreement with the engineers was reached.
“New Jersey’s first rail strike in decades has officially come to an end,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said Sunday evening. “Starting Tuesday, May 20, NJ Transit will once again provide rail service to the more than 100,000 riders who depend on it every, single day.”
NJ Transit trains to resume Tuesday after strike ends
NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said Monday’s train service will follow NJ Transit’s strike contingency plan, before full service restarts on Tuesday.
Trains may not be operational Monday because the train cars and hundreds of miles of tracks must be inspected first, an NJ Transit source told CBS News New York.
“The deal, as the governor correctly said, is fair and fiscally responsible,” Kolluri said. “The deal itself reflects a series of concessions that came together by way of a work rule that will eventually end up paying for this fair wage that the unions have asked for.”
Kolluri and Murphy did not reveal specific details about the agreement with BLET.
On Saturday, Kolluri said the agency wanted a fair deal that wouldn’t break the bank, but noted discussions with the union were constructive. At the time, he said he believed the sides were about 95% of the way to a deal.
Tom Haas, BLET’s general chairman, spoke to CBS News New York from the picket line on Saturday and said that the sides had been 95% of the way for roughly two years, but some final details still needed to be worked out.
“To offer the understatement of the year, this is a very good outcome, but it is also one that was far from inevitable,” Murphy said.
Why NJ Transit engineers walked off the job
In negotiations, BLET, the union representing about 460 engineers, had been arguing neighboring transit agencies paid more and that the cost of living has gone up in New Jersey. NJ Transit had said the requested raises would blow up the agency’s budget and result in higher costs for riders.
Engineers walked off the job at 12:01 a.m. Friday after negotiations were unsuccessful. The strike fully shut down NJ Transit rail service, along with Metro-North’s west of Hudson service.
The strike created a chaotic commute Friday morning as more than 100,000 people who ride the rails daily had to find alternate routes, leading to crowding on buses, PATH trains and even ferries.
NJ Transit came up with a contingency plan while asking commuters to work from home.
The last NJ Transit strike was back in 1983 and it lasted about three weeks. Most recently, there was a potential strike in 2016, but it was averted just a day before it was scheduled to begin.
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