As the possible rail strike looms only minutes away, NJTransit officials are urging customers to work from home and complete their travel by 11:59pm tonight. As the New York Post describes it, “NJTransit is barreling towards a possible rail strike deadline Thursday night”. This rail strike, which would be one of the biggest in the US, causing problems for over 300,000 daily commuters.
‘It’s going to be ugly’
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| Photo: CNN |
“We, the locomotive engineers of NJ Transit are only asking for a fair and competitive wage” said Thomas Haas, the general chairman of the union on Wednesday night. “We are now almost out of time to solve this problem before a work stoppage takes place. The last thing we want to see that (service) to be interrupted. But we’re at the end of our rope.”
Not only will these service disruptions affect daily commuters, but it will also effect those bound for the Shakira show at the Met Life stadium as NJTransit canceled all train service there in case of the shutdown. Therefore, like the roads going into Manhattan, roads will be even more crowded going there as well.
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| Photo: CNN |
Those who are forced to now drive into Manhattan will still have to pay the pesky $9 congestion pricing toll, too.
If the strike does occur early Friday morning, that would result in a literal halt of all NJ Transit trains, resulting in a systemwide shutdown for rail.
The union claims NJ Transit engineers earn an average salary of $113,000, which is one of the lowest annual salaries for railroad engineers in this part of the region, at least compared to what is made by Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad engineers, and that they’ll settle for a deal earning them 170,000, a pretty good increase, however, NJTRANSIT disputes this, claiming engineers make a low of $135,000, and some of the highest earners make more than $200,000. As far as hourly pay goes, LIRR engineers start at $49.92, meanwhile Metro-North engineers on $57.20 an hour. Meanwhile, their colleagues at NJTransit where an engineers hourly rate starts at $39.78.
The last time a strike occurred of anything close to this scale was back in 1983. In 1983, a 1-month strike occurred, and also in the 80s, SEPTA also was on strike for 108 days, and Metro-North for 42, and even the LIRR, the busiest of them, had a 11-day work stoppage.
As of this point, while only literally hours away from finding out whether or not service will be disrupted, NJ Transit sent out a “critical service advisory” stating that “Due to a potential rail stoppage, NJ Transit strongly advises all train customers to complete their travels and arrive at their final destination no later than 11:59 p.m on Thursday, May 15th.” Meaning that at exactly 12:01am, all NJTransit engineers will literally just “walk off the job.”
As of 9:24pm, when I’m writing this, it still shows trains running after 12:01am, therefore, I don’t know whether or not they’ll publish a list of “last trains” till the last minute.
If there is a strike, which is quite likely at this point, NJ Transit will provide a couple of park-and-ride bus shuttles, which you can find more information about on their website. I believe they will also be providing more bus service too. PATH and Amtrak service will also run normal, and those could potentially be used as alternatives, as well.
As of now, apparently they’re “optimistic”, but with only a couple of minutes left, I’m not too hopeful they’ll be able to scrounge up a deal.