New Jersey Transit reaches tentative deal with engineers union that could end strike

CNN Negotiators for New Jersey Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen BLET the union representing striking engineers have reached a tentative labor agreement that could bring an end to the three-day strike according to the union This is a good development for labor It s a good impact for NJ Transit It s a good conclusion for commuters and taxpayers Gov Phil Murphy disclosed in a Sunday evening press conference The engineers are due back at work on Monday But NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri noted the railroad needed a day to resume operations even with the engineers back on the job This is an extraordinarily complex operation he disclosed at the press conference We run hundreds of trains a day We have to make sure all the equipment is where it requirements to be all the safety inspections have been done For us it is better to get it right and do it methodically than to rush and meet a few artificial deadline and get it wrong The strike that started Friday had the probable to greatly disrupt the daily commutes of around regular customers of the nation s third-largest commuter railroad as well as businesses across the New York metropolitan region It also had the anticipated to inconvenience fans of Beyonc who has five concerts beginning Thursday evening at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey just miles from Midtown Manhattan Murphy inquired commuters to work from home once again on Monday as a large number of apparently did on Friday when there was relatively little overcrowding published on the buses and other forms of transit that were not on strike He noted that Mondays are the second-lightest day of the week for ridership after Fridays and that the railroad wants to be at full strength for the busy Tuesday-through-Thursday period The union also declared this deal is a good one for both members and the railroad While I won t get into the exact details of the deal reached I will say that the only real issue was wages and we were able to reach an agreement that boosts hourly pay beyond the proposal rejected by our members last month and beyond where we were when NJ Transit s managers walked away from the table Thursday evening Tom Haas the head of a union unit that represents the NJ Transit engineers commented We also were able to show management procedures to boost engineers wages that will help NJT with retention and recruitment without causing any notable budget issue or requiring a fare increase he added Terms of the tentative deal were not at once available The agreement still demands to be ratified by the majority of rank-and-file members for the threat of a resumption of the strike to be put to rest A previous vote on an earlier tentative agreement failed with of members voting no It also requirements to be ratified by the New Jersey Transit board which appears to be virtually certain Pay parity Murphy and Kolluri stated they are hopeful that this time the engineers will accept the tentative deal The past is the past Kolluri stated I think we ve learned certain pivotal lessons on what the membership craved The two sides had both declared on Friday that they had been close to a deal to give engineers their first raise since The union mentioned they needed a deal that would bring them into parity with engineers at nearby rail systems including Amtrak as well as commuter lines serving the Philadelphia realm the suburbs north of New York City and Long Island They revealed they are losing too numerous members to those competing railroads without wage parity The number of engineers at the railroad has fallen by just since the start of the year according to BLET But Murphy and Kolluri insisted that they needed a contract that gave the engineers a fair wage hike They reported meeting the union s wage demands would trigger me too clauses in the contracts of other unions at the commuter utility which allow unions that have already reached labor deals with the railroad to see their pay raises increase to match whatever the engineers get in their deal Murphy and Kolluri insist that the agency could not afford to do that But BLET president Mark Wallace insisted the union had presented a way to give his members the wage increases they were demanding without triggering the me too clauses in the other union deals Congress stayed on sidelines Railroads operate under an arcane century-old federal law the Railway Labor Act that controls labor relations at railroads and airlines greatly limiting the union s ability to go on strike Even when members of a union reject a contract as has happened in this affair they can be ordered to stay on the job and accept the terms of the deal through an act of Congress That s what happened in December when Congress voted in favor of a deal rejected by the majority of the more than union members who work at the nation s four major freight railroads But Congress had shown no intention to act in the circumstance of a single commuter railroad While Congress has not allowed the nation s freight railroads to strike for more than a insufficient hours there have been numerous commuter rail strikes that have stretched on for weeks even months without Congressional action Without Congress acting to end the strike the state and New Jersey Transit were under pressure to reach a quick deal to get the engineers back to work and commuters back on trains The strike itself was costing NJ Transit about million a day Kolluri explained Back in New Jersey Transit was on strike for one month The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority also went on strike in the s for days Metro North which is the commuter line serving the suburbs north of New York was on strike for days and the Long Island Rail Road stopped for days