NJ Transit says riders should work from home if engineers go on strike

NJ Transit riders on Wednesday were urged to work from home if Garden State locomotive engineers make good on a threat to strike in mid-May, which would shut down the agency’s commuter rail service that carries roughly 350,000 daily passengers.

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers members earlier this month rejected a tentative agreement between the union’s leadership and NJ Transit, allowing for a strike as early as May 16. It would mark the first major transit strike in New Jersey since 1983, when workers walked off the job for more than a month.

NJ Transit President Kris Kolluri said during a news conference his team would increase bus service during a strike, and noted riders could instead use PATH and Amtrak trains or ferries to commute. But he said riders with office jobs should work from home to save the limited number of seats on other transit services for essential workers.

“This is not what any one of us wants to do, but what we are not going to do is cower under the table and not have a plan for our customers,” Kolluri said. “That is my singular priority.”

Kolluri accused the workers — who have been without a contract for six years — of demanding an unrealistic pay raise.

“Members who live in New Jersey, who work in New Jersey, somehow believe that they are entitled to make wages like they live in New York and work in New York,” Kolluri said. “No one that I know would ever ask for that deal, but that is where we are.”

NJ Transit officials said the engineers earned an average of $135,000 per year, which includes overtime pay. But Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers General Chairman Tom Haas said that number is from 2020, when workers logged extra hours during the pandemic.

Haas said the minimum salary for engineers is $89,000, and the union has called for a 3% annual pay raise.

“All of this would be completely unnecessary if NJ Transit would simply come to us at the table and bring a real, serious, fair and equitable wage proposal for engineers,” Haas said. “We haven’t seen a raise since 2019. … Now we’ve seen significant reductions in overtime since that time.”

The union has 450 locomotive engineers, which includes trainees. NJ Transit officials said the strike would also affect Metro-North's west-of-Hudson service, which runs through New Jersey.