With just days to go before NJ Transit train engineers potentially walk off the job, the CEO of the state's transit agency again traded barbs with the engineers union, and both sides are predicting that a strike will begin next week.
Appearing at Newark Penn Station on Tuesday, NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said the latest offer from the union, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, would give the average engineer a $90,000 salary hike, to $225,000. A union spokesman fired back by saying its offer differed from NJ Transit's demands by only 2%, and he called Kolluri's criticism of the union "fiction."
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When NJ Transit averted its last potential strike in 2016, the two sides did not agree to a new contract until the day before a planned walkout. But Kolluri said the union's latest offer, which he said would give engineers a larger raise than they would have received under the union's previous proposal, does not give him hope that a deal will emerge before the deadline, 11:59 p.m. on May 15.
"I think it is a clear signal that they intend on striking and not seeking a solution," he said.
On Friday, the National Mediation Board said it will host a meeting on Monday in Washington, D.C., between NJ Transit officials and BLET's negotiating team. Both sides have agreed to participate.
Before news of the National Mediation Board's intervention broke, Tom Haas, the union's general chairman, also predicted a work stoppage, but pinned the blame on NJ Transit rejecting the union's latest offer.
"This sets the stage for an expected lockout of locomotive engineers by NJ Transit," Haas said.
NJ Transit and its roughly 420 train engineers have been feuding over a new contract since 2020, and federal rules over railroad strikes have delayed any work stoppage.
The union has said big salary hikes are needed to prevent NJ Transit from losing engineers to higher-paying jobs for New York-based railroads.
Kolluri said the average NJ Transit engineer earns an annual pay of $135,00. A tentative contract agreed to in March would have raised that to $172,000, but union members overwhelmingly rejected it. Kolluri said Tuesday that the union's suggested salary hike to $225,000 came after it had suggested a raise to $190,000.
"I will never leave the bargaining table. I'll always meet them, but they have to understand that in a negotiation you don't go from trying to meet somebody halfway to even worse than they were before they started the negotiation," Kolluri said. "If that is their tactic, I'm not sure if they understand how to negotiate."
Haas said the union remains willing to negotiate for a fair agreement.
"Despite the BLET presenting a new proposal, that included new concessions to NJT, wage increases that differ from NJT's demands by only two percent, and an additional three years to provide stability through June of 2030, NJT management rejected the offer and declined to continue bargaining," he said in a statement.
The union has argued that Kolluri's salary statistics are skewed by overtime pay. Kolluri scoffed at the union's claim that they offered concessions, saying one of them was that if an engineer trainee quit within a year, they'd have to pay back $9,300 to NJ Transit.
The strike threatens to strand many of the nearly 200,000 commuters who use NJ Transit trains to get to and from work daily. The agency has said it is prepared in the event of a strike, though it has cautioned that planned extra bus service would handle just a fraction of the number of people who use its trains every day. Last week, transit officials urged commuters to consider working from home if a strike happens.
New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com.