New Jersey Transit executives and the union representing its train drivers adjourned negotiations without reaching a deal on Saturday, the second full day of the state’s first transit strike in 40 years, a spokesman for the transit agency confirmed.
Kris Kolluri, the agency’s chief executive, entered talks with representatives from the striking union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, at around 1 p.m. on Saturday, a day earlier than planned, the agency said. The two sides adjourned without an agreement a few hours later. They plan to start up talks again on Sunday.
“Today’s discussions continued to be constructive,” Mr. Kolluri said in a statement on Saturday afternoon. “We’ve mutually agreed to adjourn formal discussions for the day but will continue talking and look forward to resuming discussions tomorrow.”
Plans for the Saturday meeting came together on Friday night, after the union’s national president requested further negotiations. Sunday’s talk, which had already been scheduled, will include the National Mediation Board, the federal agency that coordinates labor relations in the railroad and airline industries.
Earlier on Saturday, during a news conference at the Broad Street station in Newark, Mr. Kolluri said the agency would meet with the union through the weekend in hopes of reaching a deal. “We’re going to meet the union today, we’re going to meet them tomorrow, all with this goal of getting to a deal so we can get them back to work, get our customers the reliable service they need,” he said.
A spokesman for the union said it was glad to return to the bargaining table. The union had been pushing for talks to resume before the planned Sunday meeting and had made multiple efforts to restart them since the strike began, he said.
The meetings this weekend offer a glimmer of hope for a swift end to the strike. The stoppage has hobbled the transit agency, which operates the nation’s third-largest commuter rail network, stranding thousands of commuters.
The strike officially began at 12:01 a.m. on Friday when the engineers walked out after contract talks had stalled between their union and the transit agency. The two sides had been engaged in negotiations for months and, according to Mr. Kolluri, who has been leading the agency’s bargaining team, had been 95 percent of the way to a deal, but reached an impasse on the issue of pay.
New Jersey Transit’s engineers want to be paid on par with those at other commuter railroads in the area — including Amtrak, Metro-North Railroad and the Long Island Rail Road — but Mr. Kolluri has said that the agency cannot afford those pay increases.
At the news conference on Saturday morning, he doubled down on this point, adding that while he was eager to resolve the issue and put an end to the strike, the agency would not “break the bank” to do so.
“We need to make sure we live within our means,” he said. “The governor and I have said we will not make a decision on a labor contract that will leave the next governor a mess to clean up.”
The effects of the strike were quickly felt on Friday morning, as fleets of passenger trains sat dormant in rail yards and frustrated commuters were forced to use expensive or inconvenient alternatives to get to work on time.
The transit agency has a contingency plan for the strike, which includes running supplemental buses to fill the gaps left by the rail lines, but the buses can transport only about one-fifth of the displaced train riders, according to the agency, and that plan does not go into full effect until Monday.
On Saturday morning, Mr. Kolluri offered a rosier review of the strike’s first day. Despite some crowding, he said, the agency had been able to supply enough buses to absorb commuters.
“Our focus this entire time has been to make sure, in a calm and collected manner, we implement our contingency plan, which is what we’ve done,” Mr. Kolluri said.
Still, as the negotiations resumed this weekend, Mr. Kolluri prepared customers for the possibility that they would not end the strike, and he asked residents to avoid going to work on Monday if they did not have to.
“If you can continue to work from home, it would be a hugely helpful moment for us in order to manage the volume,” he said.
Patrick McGeehan contributed reporting.
Maia Coleman is a reporter for The Times covering the New York Police Department and criminal justice in the New York area.
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