New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)’s Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) is facing a potential strike as the five unions are considering launching a strike as early as September 18. At that time, the busiest commuter railroad in the United States will come to a complete halt, affecting over 300,000 passengers.
This potential strike comes just four months after the strike of New Jersey Transit locomotive engineers. At that time, teachers missed classes, nurses couldn’t attend to patients in time, and many passengers who had already purchased monthly tickets had to pay extra for alternative transportation.
However, experts warn that if the Long Island Rail Road shuts down, the impact will be much more severe than in New Jersey. NJ Transit passengers still have the option to choose PATH trains, ferries, Amtrak, or buses to enter Manhattan, but residents who rely on the Long Island Rail Road to commute into the city will have almost no alternatives.
MTA has not yet announced a comprehensive alternative transportation plan, but they have proposed providing shuttle buses during peak hours (from 4:30 AM to 9 AM to Manhattan, and from 3 PM to 7 PM for the return trip). The buses will depart from three Long Island Rail Road stations – Bellmore, Hicksville, and Ronkonkoma – with a frequency of every 10 minutes, heading to subway transfer points in Queens.
For passengers who have already purchased monthly tickets, if the strike causes a service interruption, MTA may refund a portion of the monthly ticket fees proportionally, pending approval from the MTA board.
LIRR board passenger representative Gerard Brigmann recalls the experience of the 1987 LIRR worker strike and bluntly describes the shuttle bus service as a “nightmare”: often waiting for the bus to fill up before departing, and the routes cannot cover all stations. That strike lasted for 11 days and was only resolved with the intervention of then-President Reagan.
Under the Federal Railway Labor Act, Governor Hochul has the authority to request the formation of an “Emergency Mediation Board” by the president to avoid a strike, but she has not yet made such a request.
The five major unions have been without a new contract for three years, accusing MTA of “continuously distorting negotiation progress in the media.” The unions are demanding a 16% pay increase, to which MTA responds that it simply cannot afford it, and compromising could hasten fare hikes.
MTA spokesperson John McCarthy states that fares are directly linked to labor costs, “if we accept the current demands of the unions, it will force us to raise our fares significantly beyond the established 4% increase every two years.”