LIRR strike: What to know about the rail workers' walkout
More than 300,000 daily commuters are expected to be affected by the strike.
For the first time in 32 years, tens of thousands of New Yorkers began the workweek without the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) after workers at the busiest commuter railroad in North America went on strike over the weekend.
More than 300,000 daily commuters rely on the LIRR to get from Long Island to New York City. State and local officials scrambled over the weekend to get contingency plans in place, but warned commuters to expect New York City buses and subways to be crowded on Monday.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul urged the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the five unions representing the transit workers to return to the bargaining table after negotiations appeared to break down.
Negotiations resumed Sunday afternoon when the National Mediation Board, an independent federal agency that manages labor relations in the railroad and airline industries, summoned both sides to a meeting.
Negotiations picked up again on Monday morning as LIRR riders sought transportation alternatives.
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards told WABC in New York that he was expecting his borough to be a bottleneck during the morning and afternoon rush hours as the MTA is planning to use shuttle buses to transport essential workers from Long Island to subway stations in Queens.
"That's not enough when our buses are overcrowded," Richards said of the shuttle bus plan.
Hochul said on Sunday that commuters will also be allowed to park in the Citi Field parking lot, which is within walking distance to the 7 train on the New York City subway system.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani asked subway riders to be patient, but cautioned them to "prepare for heavier-than-usual traffic, crowded transit options and additional travel time."
LIRR trains came to a halt at midnight on Saturday after the union representing thousands of rail workers and the MTA failed to reach an agreement on a new contract.
Kevin Sexton, the national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), one of the five unions representing LIRR workers, told reporters that he and other leaders could not come to an agreement over salary increases and health care costs before the negotiation deadline ended.
"We are far apart at this point and we feel it's unnecessary because we went through the process," Sexton said of the strike.
MTA CEO Janno Leiber said during a Sunday press conference with New York Gov. Kathy Hochul that what the unions have asked for would force riders to "pay the cost of a labor settlement that blew up the MTA budget."
"We said right up to the deadline that the unions had imposed, 'Let's talk, let's keep talking,' and we sat there in the hallway, so they couldn't even avoid seeing us, that we were available to talk to them right up to and through the deadline," Leiber said.
Leiber said the unions chose to "walk out" on the negotiations.
The LIRR unions called the job action an "open-ended strike," telling ABC News that, despite claims from Leiber and Hochul, MTA officials had not reached out to them about negotiations.
It was unclear on Sunday afternoon whether any new negotiations are scheduled.
According to the union statement, talks broke down when the MTA added "healthcare takeaways and other concessionary issues to the table literally in the 11th hour before a midnight strike deadline. These regressive management demands had never been raised previously."
But in an interview on Sunday with ABC New York City station WABC, Leiber denied the unions' assertion that a disagreement over health insurance prompted the strike, calling it "complete nonsense."
Lieber said the rail workers' unions "rejected every single idea that we put on the table, and there were many."
The unions are demanding wage increases of 14.5% over four years, WABC reports, while MTA officials have offered slightly smaller increases and a lump-sum payment in the contract's fourth year to make up the difference. The proposed pay bumps are largely in line with contracts accepted by the LIRR's conductors and New York City Transit workers, WABC reports.
In a statement released on Saturday, Hochul said the unions "represent the highest-paid workers of any railroad in the nation, yet they are demanding contracts that could raise fares as much as 8%, pit workers against one another, and risk tax hikes for Long Islanders."
During her news conference on Sunday, Hochul struck a more conciliatory tone.
"The work you do is absolutely vital. I value your labor and I believe that you deserve fair wages and benefits. But this strike has put all of that at risk," she said.
The governor added, "Just three days of a strike would erase every dollar of additional salary that workers would receive under a new contract."
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