The Long Island Rail Road, America’s busiest passenger rail service, will be forced to shut down on Saturday if transit officials and workers cannot come to terms on a contract and avert a strike.
Five unions representing more than 3,500 workers — including engineers, signalmen and machinists — are preparing to walk off the job at 12:01 a.m. on May 16 if they don’t receive bigger raises than they are currently being offered. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that runs the railroad, has said such an increase could lead to higher fares, higher state taxes or service cuts.
A strike on the Long Island Rail Road, which carries more than 270,000 passengers a day between Long Island and New York City, on average, could cause chaos for travelers with few other options. Many commuters cannot work remotely and rely on the service. And on Saturday, the New York Mets are set to face the Yankees at Citi Field in Queens, where thousands of Long Island fans are expected to arrive by rail.
The threat of a strike comes as Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, seeks re-election later this year. The governor, who lost Long Island in the last election, is being challenged by the Nassau County executive, Bruce Blakeman, a Republican with close ties to the region.
Ms. Hochul said at news conference on Wednesday that she did not want a strike, but that the unions’ salary demands could jeopardize the M.T.A.’s finances at a time when the authority is finally on stable ground.
“I’m not willing to ask Long Islanders to pay unnecessary fare hikes or higher taxes,” she said. “So we have to be ready for whatever happens.”
Kevin Sexton, a vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, one of the unions, said he was encouraged by the governor’s willingness to negotiate, but that the possibility of a strike remained.
To say that the two sides were close to a deal, he added, would be “far-fetched.”
What do the unions want?
The five unions, representing about half of the Long Island Rail Road work force, are the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen; the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen; the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the Transportation Communications Union.
They are seeking a retroactive 9.5 percent wage increase covering the last three years — the same deal the M.T.A. offered several other transit and civil service unions in recent months. But they also want a 5 percent raise in the current year, a demand that exceeds what the M.T.A. has offered to other unions.
The M.T.A. has countered with a 3 percent raise for 2026, arguing that going beyond that amount could upend negotiations with more than 80 other unions.
The rail service has an annual operating budget of $2.2 billion. Labor accounts for nearly three-fourths of that budget.
Leaders of the negotiating unions have argued that their workers don’t make enough money to keep up with the cost of living in one of the country’s most expensive metro areas. They have not received raises since 2022.
Cash compensation for members of the five holdout unions averaged over $136,000 in 2025, according to M.T.A. figures, making them among the highest-paid rail workers in the nation.
If the unions agree to the current offer of a 9.5 percent raise, the M.T.A. said, the average worker will receive more than $25,000 in back pay. The agency has also proposed a one-time cash bonus to workers to seal the deal.
But without a commitment to raise compensation higher this year, the workers’ salaries would soon lag behind inflation again, said James Horwitz, a spokesman for the unions.
“We want to see real wage growth,” he said.
Who would be affected by a strike?
The Long Island Rail Road carried nearly 82 million customers last year. Most were weekday commuters on their way to jobs in New York City, but an increasing number of passengers are using the service on weekends — about 137,000 on a typical Saturday, and 112,000 on Sundays.
A growing share of passengers live in Queens and the parts of Nassau County that are closest to New York City.
If a strike occurs, transit officials expect more traffic on major highways, including the Long Island Expressway and the Northern State Parkway.
What are the travel alternatives during a strike?
In the event of a strike, the M.T.A. will provide free weekday bus service beginning Monday morning from six locations on Long Island to two subway stations in Queens, and in the opposite direction during the evening rush.
Buses from the Bay Shore, Hicksville and Mineola L.I.R.R. stations, as well as Hempstead Lake State Park near the Lakeview station, would shuttle riders to the A train stop at Howard Beach-JFK Airport. And buses from Huntington and Ronkonkoma would take riders to the F train stop at Jamaica-179 Street.
The buses to Queens would run every 10 minutes from 4:30 a.m. to 9 a.m., and afternoon shuttles back to Long Island would run from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Janno Lieber, the M.T.A.’s chairman and chief executive, said the buses would not be able to accommodate all the riders who rely on the railroad, and encouraged people to work from home if they can.
Jai Patel, the M.T.A.’s chief financial officer, said that between 165 and 275 buses would be used, at a cost of $325,000 to $550,000 per day. Even if the strike is averted, the M.T.A. would still have to pay to reserve the buses.
The plan leaves many gaps across the railroad’s 126 stations. The M.T.A. anticipates that many people will drive or be dropped off at subway stations in Queens and Brooklyn, but said additional parking would not be provided.
Riders in Nassau County can take the Nassau County bus service, known as NICE, to the No. 7 train in Flushing, one of the busiest subway stations in the city, or to the Jamaica Bus Terminal to catch an F train.
The M.T.A. said that in the event of a strike, it would issue refunds to riders with monthly rail passes for business days without train service.
What led to this dispute?
Unlike much of the M.T.A. work force, which is prevented from striking because it is governed by different rules, Long Island Rail Road workers are covered by a 1926 federal law called the Railway Labor Act.
The law was designed to prevent major service disruptions by requiring mediation and an extended review period before a strike is authorized.
But in an unusual move, the federal agency that oversees such disputes, the National Mediation Board, last year released the unions from mediation, a decision that cleared the path for a possible walkout.
Ms. Hochul on Wednesday said that decision had “needlessly accelerated” the movement toward a strike, and blamed the Trump administration for increasing the odds.
A strike was postponed twice within the past year, after the unions requested the intervention of two federally appointed review boards. The three-person panels, which were appointed by President Trump, said the unions should be paid more than what the M.T.A. was offering. But their recommendations are not binding, and a third panel cannot be requested.
The federal government could still act to prevent a strike. But Congress did not intervene in a similar dispute last year, when NJ Transit engineers walked off the job.
M.T.A. officials had said they would consider the unions’ wage offer if the unions were willing to give up a number of work rules that often require higher pay for certain tasks. The unions declined to do so.
For instance, if an engineer drives a diesel train at the start of a shift but is asked to switch to an electric train in the same day, the M.T.A. must compensate that worker with two days’ pay. If, on the same day, the engineer is asked to switch from driving passengers to driving a train back to a yard for maintenance or storage, that worker is entitled to a third day of pay.
These penalty payments added almost 15 percent to the average engineer’s compensation in 2024, the M.T.A. said.
When was the last L.I.R.R. strike?
There has not been a strike on the railroad since 1994, when a two-day suspension sent riders scrambling for alternatives.
News reports at the time said the first day of suspended service did not cause as many problems as some had feared. But the system had only about 110,000 daily riders at the time, less than half of the typical ridership today.
Then, as now, the two sides argued over pay and work rules. The M.T.A., under Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, ultimately acceded to most of the unions’ demands, ending the strike.
Stefanos Chen is a Times reporter covering New York City’s transit system.
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