Locomotive engineers, who were a hot commodity for NJ Transit to hire four years ago, are upset with a salary offer from NJ Transit and may start voting with their feet, either by taking jobs with other commuter railroads that pay more, or going on strike, union leaders said.

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen officials said the union could strike over negotiations that have dragged on for three years.

“We are at a de facto impasse,” said James P, Brown, BLET general chairman. “The major sticking point is the hourly wage. “We make significantly less than the Long Island Rail Road, Metro North or Amtrak.”

A BLET comparison of eight northeast commuter railroads and Amtrak showed NJ Transit engineers had the second lowest hourly rate of $39.78. SEPTA rates are lowest at $39.74. PATH. Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak all have higher hourly rates for engineers.

“We can walk across the platform and get a $15 dollar an hour raise,” he said. “If NJ Transit doesn’t come around with a fair proposal, these guys will strike. They’re tired of waiting, they want parity (with other railroads).”

NJ Transit is offering a 2.4% wage increase, the same as other rail unions have received, which doesn’t take into account the 24 months of training, technical knowledge and responsibility locomotive engineers have, Brown said.

“It’s apples to oranges. We’re not clerks, we operate heavy equipment and have up to 1,500 people (per train) we’re responsible for,” Brown said. NJ Transit isn’t negotiating in good faith. The proposal from day one in 2020 is exactly the same.”

Union officials also said NJ Transit isn’t living up to the current agreement that calls for a pay differential of 10.4% between what engineers and other rail employees earn.

Of NJ Transit’s 15 rail unions, 14 have settled new contracts, said Jim Smith, an NJ Transit spokesman.

 

“We have made a fair and pattern-based contract offer that has been accepted and ratified by 14 of our 15 rail unions covering 91% of our rail union employees,” he said. The BLET is the only union to not accept these terms. NJ Transit is currently engaged in active and ongoing mediation through the National Mediation Board.”

Both sides are scheduled to meet in Washington, D.C. on March 31, Brown said.

BLET officials questioned the agency’s and Gov. Phil Murphy’s priorities, citing federal COVID-19 aid the agency has received and a recent vote to move NJ Transit headquarters from the building the agency owns at One Penn Plaza to nearby leased space in Gateway Plaza. NJ Transit officials said that decision was based on a $100 million estimate to repair problems in the building.

“Their priorities are out of step,” said James Horwitz, a national BLET spokesman. “If they don’t deal with it, they’ll wind up with a labor shortage and can’t move trains.”

On a Sunday in 2019, NJ Transit had to cancel 29 trains one day due to a lack of engineers to operate them. A multi-year hiring and training blitz filled those ranks.

“Due to historic levels of recruiting and training we have and continue to have a full roster of engineers and a full training pipeline,” Smith said, in response to questions about losing engineers to other railroads.

In 2016, NJ Transit was on the brink of a strike when locomotive engineers and conductors were the last unions to reach an agreement. Under contingency plans announced by NJ Transit in March 2016 in preparation for a rail strike, only 40,000 of the 105,000 New York bound rail commuters could have been transported.

The remaining riders, nearly 65,000, could have turned into as many as 10,000 cars an hour on roads within 25 miles of New York during morning and evening rush hours, experts said.

Talks in 2016 with a coalition of 11 rail unions also landed in Washington before the National Mediation Board to hammer out an agreement. Those negotiations went further with the formation of two Presidential Emergency Boards to make recommendations the two sides could use as the framework for a contract.

The last strike against NJ Transit was in March 1983 and lasted for 34 days.

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Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com.