Train engineers at New Jersey Transit have reached a tentative labor agreement that is expected to end the strike that brought the agency’s rail service to a standstill for three days, disrupting travel for approximately 100,000 daily passengers. The union announced that employees will resume work on Tuesday, at which point train service is scheduled to return to normal.
This strike, which began on Friday, marked the first labor action of its kind for New Jersey’s rail system in over four decades. With trains out of commission, commuters scrambled to find alternative ways to travel—using buses, ride-shares, ferries, or simply staying home. At the center of the standoff was a dispute over how to raise engineers’ pay without triggering a financial crisis for NJ Transit.
Initially, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen indicated that train operations would resume on Monday. However, union spokesman Jamie Horwitz later clarified that NJ Transit had told them the actual restart would be early Tuesday morning at 12:01 a.m.
NJ Transit released a statement explaining that the additional day was required to complete necessary safety checks and system preparations: “It takes approximately 24 hours to inspect and prepare the infrastructure before returning to full scheduled service.”
According to an email distributed by the union, the agreement will now be reviewed by the 450 engineers and engineer trainees who make up its membership within the passenger railroad system.
“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,” said Tom Haas, the union’s general chairman at NJ Transit.
He further noted that union negotiators had succeeded in showing management “ways to boost engineers’ wages … without causing any significant budget issue or requiring a fare increase.”
The tentative agreement must now go through two levels of approval: a ratification vote by the national arm of the union, and a formal endorsement by NJ Transit’s board, which is expected to meet on June 11.
“To offer the understatement of the year, this is a very good outcome,” New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy remarked during a press conference Sunday evening. He applauded both parties for coming to an agreement that is “both fair to NJ Transit’s employees while also being affordable for our state’s commuters and taxpayers.”
Kris Kolluri, CEO of NJ Transit, refrained from disclosing specifics of the agreement but called the outcome “fair and fiscally responsible.” He thanked the union for approaching the negotiations with integrity.
“The deal itself reflects a series of concessions that came together by way of a work bill that will eventually end up paying for this fair wage that the union has asked for,” Kolluri stated during the same press briefing.
To accommodate commuters on Monday, bus services will be available, but both Governor Murphy and Kolluri encouraged employees to work remotely for one more day if possible.
“Please do that tomorrow so we can move essential employees through the system,” Kolluri urged.
Just one month earlier, union members had overwhelmingly turned down a previous contract offer, intensifying the standoff.
New Jersey Transit—America’s third-largest public transportation provider—runs both bus and rail services throughout the state, facilitating nearly one million weekday journeys. The strike brought all commuter rail traffic to a halt, including critical lines connecting Penn Station in Manhattan to northern New Jersey suburbs, as well as routes to Newark Liberty International Airport, which has already been experiencing unrelated disruptions.
Mark Wallace, president of the national union, previously argued that NJ Transit needs to raise wages to match the pay scale at Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road, noting that some engineers have already left for those higher-paying positions.
The union stated that its members have been earning an average of $113,000 per year and pushed for that number to rise to around $170,000 annually under a new deal.
NJ Transit officials, however, challenged those figures, saying the actual average earnings are closer to $135,000, with the top earners bringing in over $200,000 per year.
{Matzav.com}