Democrats have long blanched when public-sector unions threaten to strike and hold the economy for ransom. But with New Jersey Transit train engineers walking off the job on Friday, Gov. Phil Murphy can show the nation how blue states can resist that threat. Don’t panic, just say, “Let them strike,” and demonstrate resilience.
With New York’s help, New Jersey can reduce the impact of the strike.
New Jersey starts with an advantage: As of 2024, nearly three-quarters of New Jersey Transit’s weekday trips were on buses and light rail, which continue to operate. Most commuters who travel into Manhattan from New Jersey arrive on a bus and New Jersey is adding bus service to mitigate the strike’s impact. A private bus company, Boxcar, is also giving customers more options.
Governor Murphy should also push car-pooling, with the help of Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, who could implement a two- or three-passenger minimum for vehicles entering Lower and Midtown Manhattan from New Jersey if traffic grows too heavy. New York’s four-and-a-half-month-old congestion-pricing program is already a good reason for workers to car pool and save money.
Governor Hochul should resist calls to suspend the congestion charge during the strike.
Transit worker walkouts can have devastating consequences for the area economy. In 1966, the Transport Workers Union’s 12-day strike against subways cost New York more than half a billion dollars ($5 billion in today’s dollars) in lost wages and business.
The strike transformed the brand-new administration of Mayor John V. Lindsay from fresh to exhausted.
The political terror of transit strikes levies long-term costs. For decades, elected officials have allowed various unions to use the threat of a strike to protect pay and work practices that perennially push up the cost of providing transit.
In 1994, Gov. Mario Cuomo settled a Long Island Rail Road strike by ending any prospect of work-rule changes, even though work rules reward inefficiency and push up overtime costs. Two decades later, his son, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, largely gave in to labor after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority spent weeks planning for an L.I.R.R. walkout.
New Jersey Transit’s engineers have rejected retroactive raises that the agency’s executives say would increase average pay to $173,200 in 2028, from $135,400 in 2020. That nearly 28 percent growth in wages would track inflation as long as inflation steadies in the next three years. But the union demands pay parity with engineers in New York, including at the L.I.R.R.
There is no reason New Jersey should offer identical railroad pay to what New York does and lock itself into New York-level tax increases to support commuter rail. Governor Hochul has just signed into law a $1.4 billion payroll-tax increase on downstate businesses to attempt to keep up with the M.T.A.’s ever-growing deficits, a tax on jobs, even as the city has had a slow post-Covid recovery compared to the nation.
Murphy’s most powerful tool is one that didn’t exist during previous transit strikes: the ability of many workers to work from home. No, the goal isn’t a return to a 2020 lockdown. But a commuter who regularly comes to Manhattan three days a week could cut down to two, and car pool on those two days, lessening traffic strain.
Transforming a disaster into an inconvenience reduces the railroad union’s power to strike.
The same strategy and tactics could apply to future threatened strikes: What works for New Jersey Transit could work for the L.I.R.R. Even in New York City, with more people regularly bicycling to work, and, perhaps, with a state initiative to preregister interested people online for a ride-matching service in case of transit emergency, a future subway and bus strike would have less power to harm.
Other public-sector unions will be watching — and so will national voters skeptical of Democratic politicians’ ability to govern. The goal in withstanding a strike isn’t to destroy public-sector union power, but to demonstrate that union power doesn’t have the power to destroy the economy. Two sides can’t negotiate fairly if one side can hold the other hostage.
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Nicole Gelinas is a contributing editor for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.
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