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8/18/2023
A federal judge rejected New Jersey Transit’s request for an injunction that would have stopped the agency’s locomotive engineers from holding a strike vote.
Represented by the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), the 500 union members who work for the transit agency are currently taking a strike authorization vote, with results expected to be announced Aug. 31.
Although Judge Christine O’Hearn denied NJ Transit’s motion, she did order the union to tell its members to show up for work on Labor Day weekend, the New Jersey Monitor reported.
The engineers and their union have been seeking a new contract since October 2019. The contract dispute has been in National Mediation Board-sponsored mediation for nearly three years.
Federal rules set waiting periods for railway strikes, and the union faces temporary restraints over a sickout on Juneteenth in 2022. NJ Transit had sought the order to prevent the locomotive engineers from striking. Agency officials said they were concerned the Aug. 31 deadline would precede a job action that would violate the existing order as well as the Railway Labor Act, the news site reported.
"Judge O’Hearn found no evidence of any illegal job actions planned or threatened," BLET officials said in a press release.