NEW YORK — The Long Island Rail Road, North America’s largest commuter rail system, was shut down Saturday after unionized workers went on strike for the first time in three decades.
The railroad, which serves New York City and its eastern suburbs, ceased operations just after midnight after five unions representing about half its workforce walked off the job.
The unions and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the public agency that runs the railroad, have been negotiating for months on a new contract, and the Trump administration tried to broker a deal. The unions were legally allowed to strike starting at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
Kevin Sexton, the national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said no new negotiations have been scheduled.
“We’re far apart at this point,” Sexton said early Saturday. “We are truly sorry that we are in this situation.”
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said that the agency “gave the union everything they said they wanted in terms of pay” and that he believed the unions always intended to walk out.
The walkout, the first for the LIRR since a two-day strike in 1994, promises to cause headaches for sports fans planning to see the Yankees and Mets play each other this weekend or to watch the Knicks’ playoff run at Madison Square Garden, directly above the railroad’s Penn Station hub in Manhattan.
If the shutdown continues into the work week, the roughly 250,000 people who ride the system to and from work each weekday will be forced to find alternative routes to the city from its Long Island suburbs.
For many, that probably means navigating the region’s notoriously congested roads.
“People are still going to commute, but if everybody starts driving now, the traffic is only going to get worse,” Rich Piccola, an accountant who commutes into the city, said as he waited at Penn Station for a train home Thursday.
Gov. Kathy Hochul blamed the Trump administration for cutting mediation short and pushing the negotiations toward a strike. President Trump responded on his Truth Social platform Saturday that he had nothing to do with the strike and “never even heard about it until this morning.”
“No, Kathy, it’s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen,” Trump wrote, renewing his endorsement of Long Island politician Bruce Blakeman, who’s challenging Hochul’s reelection bid. “If you can’t solve it, let me know, and I’ll show you how to properly get things done.”
Hochul urged Long Islanders to work from home if possible. The MTA has said it will provide limited shuttle buses to New York City subway stations, but that contingency plan wasn’t envisioned to handle all the riders the system normally carries on a workday.
And while remote work options greatly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, many workers still need to show up in person, said Lisa Daglian, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the MTA, a commuter advocacy group.
“You work in construction, you work in the healthcare industry, you work at a school or you’re about to graduate from school, that’s not always possible,” she said of telecommuting. “People need to get where they need to go.”
The most recent contract talks have stalled on the question of workers’ salaries and healthcare premiums.
The MTA has said the unions’ initial demands would have led to fare increases and affected contract negotiations with other unionized workers.
The unions, which represent locomotive engineers, machinists, signalmen and other train workers, have said more substantial raises were warranted to help workers keep up with inflation and rising living costs.
Duane O’Connor, who was picketing on Saturday morning at Penn Station, said that while he regrets the effect on commuters, workers are simply asking for fair wages.
“I feel terrible. Terrible. This is going to hurt. This is going to hurt the island, this is going to hurt the city. … All we are asking for is fair wages. Record inflation the last few years. Our contract goes back three years, it’s not going forward, so we went through those record inflationary years and they’re trying to lowball us,” he said.
Some riders, while sympathetic to the union’s affordability concerns, worry they’ll bear the brunt of any pay raises.
If the unions get the pay increases they are looking for, “it will come at the expense of our riders who will see next year’s 4% fare increase doubled to 8%,” Gerard Bringmann, chair of the LIRR Commuter Council, a rider advocacy group, said in a statement. “Like the union workers, we too are burdened by the increase in the cost of living here on Long Island.”
With Hochul running for reelection, the pressure might be on the MTA to strike a deal to end the shutdown, said William Dwyer, a labor relations expert at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where commuter rail workers staged a three-day strike last year.
“She’s up for reelection, and Long Island is a critical vote for her,” he said. “So if there’s a significant fare hike, that does not bode well for her on election day.”
Marcelo writes for the Associated Press.
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