LIRR workers launch strike after unsuccessful wage negotiations

In the early morning of May 16, about 3,500 unionized workers employed by the MTA Long Island Rail Road went on strike following unsuccessful wage increase negotiations between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and a five-union bargaining coalition.

The striking workers have gone more than three years without raises throughout the process of bargaining a new contract, said Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) officials in a press release. BLET is one of the five unions in the coalition, representing about 500 of the striking workers.

As part of the negotiation process, both the MTA and coalition have agued their cases before two Presidential Emergency Boards, both of which sided with the unions, BLET officials said.

"This strike would not have happened if the MTA and LIRR offered our members the reasonable terms the government recommended multiple times," said Mark Wallace, president of the BLET and the Teamsters Rail Conference.

The MTA's board has made it clear the authority can't responsibly make a deal that implodes its budget, said MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber in a statement.

"We’ve fought too hard to get back on stable footing coming out of COVID, and we refuse to make a deal that puts it on riders and taxpayers to fund outsized wage increases — far beyond what anyone else at the MTA is getting — and for folks who are already the highest-paid railroad workers in the country," he said.

The MTA upped its proposals over the last week, including offering to conclude on a three-year contract where the parties agreed and to go into binding arbitration for the fourth year, but the unions rejected the offer, Lieber added. 

The strike will impact nearly 300,000 passengers who rely on the commuter railroad, MTA officials said in a separate press release. With the LIRR inoperative, roads will be more congested than normal, so the MTA encourages commuters to avoid nonessential travel and to work from home if possible.

In addition to the BLET, the unions representing the striking workers are the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and Transportation Communications Union.