President Donald Trump must intervene in the threatened strike of NJ Transit workers, a New Jersey state lawmaker said Friday.
With contract negotiations at a stalemate over wages, the NJ Transit Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen plans to strike as early as May 16. The National Mediation Board has called both sides to meet on May 12 in Washington, D.C., to reach an agreement.
Union workers, who have been without a new contract since 2019, want salaries on par with other regional train engineers. NJ Transit officials have said economic realities preclude the nearly $100,000 average salary bump the union demands for its members. According to reports, the base salary for BLET members is $89,000; they are asking for a pay raise from $190,000 to $225,000. NJ Transit has offered a package that would bring the salary to $170,000. Union members overwhelmingly rejected that offer.
In the meantime, NJ Transit has told its 350,000 daily commuters it is working on contingency plans, which include limiting use of the system to essential travel only and encouraging riders to telecommute if possible, but hopes an agreement can be reached before 12:01 a.m. next Friday.
“If these two sides can’t come to an agreement by the deadline, then the president has the authority to step in and stop this strike,” Assemblyman Bob Auth, R-Bergen, said in a release. “I’m calling on him to use that authority.”
Auth said the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, known as the Taft-Hartley Act, authorizes the president to intervene in strikes or lockouts and obtain a court order for an 80-day cooling-off period to compel negotiations to continue in labor disputes. A board of inquiry may review the labor dispute before the attorney general AG obtains the order from a federal judge. In order to obtain the court order, the president must determine if the strike affects all or a substantial part of an industry in interstate commerce, transportation, transmission or communication.
“It’s going to be a domino effect if the president allows this to happen. It isn’t just commuters who use the trains. Passengers trying to get to and from Newark Liberty International Airport using NJ Transit will be shut out. People who take the bus or light rail may find themselves pushed out. People who drive to work are going to sit in worse traffic on the Turnpike and Parkway, the bridges and tunnels,” Auth said. “The congestion is going to cause delays in getting to work, getting to school, getting to that doctor’s appointment. Businesses are going to see revenue drops. We saw this all back in the early ’80s.”
BLET members last went on strike for 34 days in March 1983 over wage disputes and poor working conditions. The 100,000 transit commuters then dealt with overcrowded buses and congestion along the major routes to urban hubs—whose businesses saw drastic reductions in revenues—along the way to New York and Philadelphia.
“It’s the start of our busy summer season. It’s the end of the school year. We’re all still trying to recover from the pandemic closures, and NJ Transit is part of all that,” Auth added. “If the union and the officials can’t come to an agreement, President Trump must step in. There’s too much at stake.”
President George W. Bush invoked the act in October 2002 in a labor dispute between the Pacific Maritime Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union during a West Coast port lockout. He appointed a board of inquiry, and after its report, a federal court issued an 80-day “cooling-off” period injunction, allowing ports to resume operations while negotiations continued.
To date, Trump, who has a residence at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, has not publicly commented on the NJ Transit labor dispute.
