NJ Transit, union officials reach deal to end rail strike, service to resume Tuesday

New Jersey Transit reached a tentative deal with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen to end the engineers' strike, with train operations to resume on Tuesday.

The deal was reached between the union and the state-run commuter rail service on Sunday, ending the three-day strike that the train engineers began on Friday, which affected about 100,000 daily rail commuters, The Associated Press reported.

The transit strike of the nation's third-largest commuter rail line was New Jersey's first in 40 years, forcing commuters to take alternative transportation or stay home. The strike started after negotiations fell through on Thursday over a disagreement between the two sides on raising wages and the impact it would have on NJ Transit's budget.

The union initially announced that train service would restart on Monday, but then BLET spokesperson Jamie Horwitz said NJ Transit told them it would begin at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday.

"NJ TRANSIT & the BLET have announced a tentative agreement," the state-run commuter rail service posted on X on Sunday. "NJ TRANSIT train service will resume on Tuesday, May 20, as it takes approximately 24 hours to inspect and prepare the infrastructure before returning to full scheduled service."

The terms of the agreement will be sent to the union's 450 members, BLET said.

“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 the union’s general chairman at NJ Transit, Tom Haas.

The union was able to show management “ways to boost engineers’ wages ... without causing any significant budget issue or requiring a fare increase,” he added.

The deal will be submitted for a ratification vote by the national union and require a vote of the NJ Transit board at its next regularly scheduled meeting on June 11, according to BLET.

“To offer the understatement of the year, this is a very good outcome,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) said Sunday. He praised the two sides for reaching an agreement that is “both fair to NJ Transit’s employees while also being affordable for our state’s commuters and taxpayers.”

NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said the deal was “fair and fiscally responsible” without providing any details of the deal.

“The deal itself reflects a series of concessions that came together by way of a work bill that will eventually end up paying for this fair wage that the union has asked for,” Kolluri said.

While buses are available on Monday, Murphy and Kolluri urged commuters to work from home again that day, if possible.

BLET had sought a wage increase for its members that was comparable to the pay of Amtrak and other nearby commuter railroads' engineers that use the same stations. The union had claimed its members were earning an average annual salary of $113,000, and wanted an agreement that raised it to $170,000.

NJ Transit, however, disagreed with BLET's data, saying that engineers have average annual total earnings of $135,000, with the highest earners exceeding $200,000.