Long Island Rail Road Back on Track after Three Day Strike

After 72 hours it was all over; the strike came to a formal end after negotiations were concluded around 8 p.m. on May 18, much to the delight of the 300,000 commuters who use the nation’s largest commuter railroad on an average weekday.

“Good evening, everyone. I’m truly pleased to share that the five Long Island Rail Road unions and the MTA were able to come together and reach a fair deal this evening,” said NY Governor Kathy Hochul at MTA HQ after the agreement was reached.

She followed an announcement by Kevin Sexton, a VP in one of the organizations in the five union coalition that includes the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the Transportation Communications Union (TCU).

The terms of the deal, which still has to be ratified by 3,200 union members as well the MTA board, were not disclosed. It is known that the two sides were only several percentage points apart in terms of of wage hikes when the strike began at 12:01 a.m. May 16. The pay package will include nearly four years of retroactive pay.

Hochul pledged that the agreement, if it is officially ratified by rank and file workers, would not require additional fare hikes or tax increases.

While the actual dealings were agreed upon by both the MTA and the unions in the early evening via a handshake agreement on May 18, to get all the operational elements in place, hourly service resumed Tuesday at noon on the Babylon, Huntington, Ronkonkoma, and Port Washington branches, with regular rush hour service on all lines at 4 p.m. LIRR officials said regular service remained suspended Tuesday morning because there was not enough time to get crews into position to run trains.

While details were not immediately made public, the MTA had pushed for several reforms to work rules and there already seems to be one bone of contention emerging over computer training.

Through the talks before and during the strike, wage increases were a major focus throughout negotiations; the rank and file members in the five union coalition will receive nearly four years of retroactive pay under a proposed new contract which will be valid until July of next year.

On May 19, just before noon, LIRR President Rob Free announced at the LIRR hub Jamaica Station the Long Island Rail Road would be up and fully running by the afternoon’s rush hour.

With media representatives on hand, during a Q&A after his brief announcement, the LIRR President Free announced that over 3,000 riders had used the free shuttle buses on May 19 from six Long Island communities to subway stops during the morning rush; this was 1,000 more than the previous day, which was the first weekday morning of the strike. He also noted, in response to another question, that part of the contract was to note that any computer training time would not be paid for, and that all salaries would be paid electronically. But there was also controversy as one union, the International Association of Machinists (IAM) said that press reports that said members would not be paid for required computer “inaccurate.”

During the 10-minute press event, one reporter noted that there was an 11:41 train on the video information display to Montauk. Within a brief moment, passengers showed up at the platform for the train that originated in Jamaica.

In response to the last question posed about whether the LIRR President harbored any lingering resentment towards the unions and their members, Free was quick to answer:

“This is a business. Nothing is personal.”

With the press conference ended, the 11:41 pulled out of Jamaica Station on its way to Patchogue and points east. The LIRR was back for its 300,000 weekday riders.