The New York Times and Bloomberg reported on Sunday that an agreement has been reached between NJ Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET). The 450 engineers who are members of that union had gone on strike on Friday at 12:01 a.m. after wage negotiations with management collapsed, making it the first labor action of its kind in over 40 years.
BLET members working for NJ Transit have been negotiating for higher wages since 2019, and have gone without a raise in five years, a period marked by high inflation due to the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The union claims on their website that NJ Transit engineers make “at least $10 less per hour” than their counterparts who work for passenger railroads that share the same train platforms. The union says management walked out of negotiations on Thursday, a claim that Governor Phil Murphy stated was “not accurate.”
Union spokesperson Jamie Horowitz reportedly told the Times that an agreement had been reached on Sunday and that an announcement from Governor Murphy would be forthcoming. Another person familiar with the negotiations told the paper that members of BLET are expected to go back to work on Monday morning.
NJ Transit’s train system serves 350,000 passengers daily, 70,000 of whom commute into New York City. The state agency’s bus and light-rail systems remained operational throughout the strike, which also affected New York’s Metro North lines running west of the Hudson River.
