New York’s Penn Station during Day 1 of NJ Transit strike
The scene inside New York’s Penn Station on the first day of the NJ Transit engineers strike at 5 p.m. on May 16, 2025.
Three days after it began, the NJ Transit strike is ending, according to a source close to the negotiations and confirmed by the union.
Train service will resume Tuesday.
“While I won’t get into the exact details of the deal reached, I will say that the only real issue was wages and we were able to reach an agreement that boosts hourly pay beyond the proposal rejected by our members last month and beyond where we were when NJ Transit’s managers walked away from the table Thursday evening,” said Tom Haas, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, in a statement exclusively obtained by NorthJersey.com.
“We also were able to show management ways to boost engineers’ wages that will help NJT with retention and recruitment, without causing any significant budget issue or requiring a fare increase.”
After a whirlwind three days of diverting tens of thousands of people from NJ Transit’s rail system, the agency reached a tentative deal with its locomotive engineers to end a historic strike that sent shockwaves statewide — just in time for the work week.
This is the second agreement reached between the two parties in three months. The first agreement, which averted a strike in March, was voted down by 87% of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen’s membership.
The fight over the expired contract went on for more than five years before it got to a work stoppage. Agency officials offered annual wage increases to the locomotive engineers that was consistent with what it offered its other 14 collective bargaining units, but the BLET said they deserved higher wage increases to be competitive with nearby railroads in New York.
Providing additional bus service and increasing trips on other modes of transportation for the 172,000 weekday daily rail riders was going to cost NJ Transit at least $4 million a day.
What comes next?
The next step is for the BLET’s 450 or so locomotive engineers to vote on the contract. If they vote it down, there will be 30 days to bargain for a new contract before the union can seek “self-help” again, or strike.
