On Friday, May 16, more than 400 NJ Transit train engineers (the workers who drive the trains) went on strike. One of the nation’s largest rail transit systems shut down, leaving the entire region in a state of economic and social uncertainty. Although the strike lasted only three days before a tentative agreement brought them back to work on Monday, May 19, hundreds of thousands of commuters and the business and political elites of the region got a sense of the potential power these workers possess. The membership of the union local will vote on the new agreement on June 11.
The workers, members of District 272 of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (a Teamsters affiliate), had been without a contract for five years. During that period, which included the Covid pandemic and rampant inflation, their wages did not increase at all. When compared to engineers for other local rail systems like Long Island Railroad and Metro-North in New York State and Amtrak, their wages were about $10 per hour (nearly 20%) lower.
These engineers are well trained and highly skilled. Much like air traffic controllers, airplane pilots, and subway controllers and engineers, they are responsible for hundreds or even thousands of lives in the massive vehicles they work. One mistake, and dozens or hundreds could be badly injured or killed. Without them hundreds of thousands cannot get to work on a daily basis, much less to airports or other big cities in the region. Yet the agencies they work take them for granted and rarely want to pay them their true value as necessary and highly skilled workers.
Part of the problem is financial. New Jersey Transit, although often considered among the better public transit systems in the nation, has no dedicated source of funding from the state. This means that the agency cobbles together funding from different sources, and the state legislature regularly haggles over how much more to devote to it year to year. Just last year, delayed repairs and antiquated equipment led to numerous shutdowns and delays, highlighting the desperate need for more funding for infrastructure. Instead of seeing real investments in transportation at federal and state levels, transit agencies often rely on regional taxes and fare hikes, dumping more costs onto the public. Another fare hike coming this summer will add to already high fares. This spring the NJ Transit director tried to claim that giving the engineers the raise they wanted would lead to “bankrupting the agency.” But if the wage demands of only 400 workers can be blamed for bankrupting NJ Transit, then the way the system is financed obviously has much larger problems.
For years, many of its workers have felt left behind and disrespected by the state and the agency. The announcement of new, more expensive offices for top admin in Newark was like adding insult to injury. After years of on and off negotiations, in April the local union leadership brought a contract offer to the membership. In a vote of over 93% of the membership, 87% voted it down, leading to weeks of federally mediated negotiations and then the current strike.
Although it is too early to tell, this could be another sign that many workers are beginning to demand more of union leaderships and beginning to feel the need for a stronger fightback against underfunding and austerity. In recent years Boeing workers, Volvo workers, and rail workers have all voted against contract proposals brought to them by their union leaderships. They stood up to their union leaders to demand better deals, and they showed a willingness to initiate or prolong strikes in order to get them. This willingness to fight is a positive sign.
At the same time, it is difficult to win these types of fights consistently. It will take a significant effort from workers to broaden their struggles to go beyond just their own individual disputes. For example, a struggle by transit workers for better wages and conditions could link up with transit workers at other agencies, and could also include organizing with passengers to demand things like reliable funding for transit, or safety and infrastructure improvements, or demanding no fare-hikes. Working to unite their struggle with those of other workers in both NJ Transit and other regional systems would also help build the power of the larger working class working in that industry.
These steps would be difficult because labor laws – especially railway labor laws – are stacked against workers and unions. But these types of actions and proposals are needed to broaden their support and broaden the struggle in ways that might create a stronger fightback among the larger working class.
This short strike is another example of the potential power that workers can have. It was a strike of only some 400 workers, yet its effects rippled across an entire region including two major cities (New York and Philadelphia) and affected hundreds of thousands. We can imagine the power of a fightback that might happen if more workers were brought into the struggle around even larger issues.
