LIRR strike avoided for now after unions ask Trump to intervene

A strike on the Long Island Rail Road has been avoided, at least temporarily. Unions representing thousands of railroad workers announced on Monday a request to the Trump administration to create an emergency board to help reach a deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority over wage increases. A strike, the first on the LIRR since 1994, was approved for this Thursday, but the request to form the panel, called a Presidential Emergency Board, delays the walkout by several months.

The five unions, known collectively as the LIRR Bargaining Committee, threatened to strike this Thursday, unless they receive a 16 percent pay raise over four years. On Monday, the unions formally requested President Donald Trump to appoint a Presidential Emergency Board.

As 6sqft reported last week, unions typically negotiate contracts together, but the LIRR Bargaining Committee broke away from the railroad’s largest union, the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART), to pursue a better deal.

SMART union members have already accepted the MTA’s contract, which gives them a 9.5 percent pay increase over three years.

“This action does not mean a strike won’t happen, but it does mean a strike won’t happen now,” Gilman Lang, general chair of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen,” told the New York Times.

According to the Times, a strike could happen as soon as January. Further intervention by the White House could mean the strike happens in May if a contract agreement is not reached.

In response to the unions’ request, John J. McCarthy, the chief of policy and external relations for the MTA, said the “outlier unions weren’t serious about negotiating.”

“They never had a plan to resolve this at the bargaining table,” McCarthy said.

“If these unions wanted to put riders first, they would either settle or agree to binding arbitration. And if they don’t want to strike, they should say so – and finally show up to the negotiating table. This cynical delay serves no one.”

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