The NJ Transit strike is over after the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) approved a deal Sunday, but train service will not resume until Tuesday.
The engineers strike halted trains across New Jersey for three days, impacting hundreds of thousands of riders who rely on the system that brings commuters to New York City and Philadelphia.
“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 strike over, trains resuming Tuesday
Monday’s train service will follow NJ Transit’s strike contingency plan, before full service restarts on Tuesday, Kolluri said.
“The one favor that our riders could do for us one more time, is if you could work from home, please do that tomorrow so we can move essential employees through the system and for their place of work, for one day, and Tuesday morning we’ll be back in business,” he said.
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.
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.
“The deal, as the governor correctly said, is fair and fiscally responsible,” Kolluri said Sunday. “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.”
“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.
Murphy and Kolluri did not reveal specifics about the agreement with BLET.
Why NJ Transit engineers went on strike
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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