A big sigh of relief after long and heated negotiations ended with a tentative deal that prevented a NJ Transit shutdown this weekend. Brian Thompson reports.
New Jersey Transit and its rail workers reached a tentative deal Friday to avert a strike that would have thrown Monday's commute into New York into chaos.
The settlement with railroad workers who had threatened to walk off the job ends a dispute that has been percolating for nearly five years, when the last contract expired. It avoids the agency's first strike in more than 30 years.
"Thankfully for the commuters of New Jersey Transit the crisis is averted," union spokesman Stephen Burkert said. "We are going home to our families."
Gov. Chris Christie said that the contract was settled with the interest of taxpayers and fare payers "placed ahead of other interests." He said that the negotiations were done in good faith throughout and that commuters "will get on the train Monday morning and it will be business as usual."
"I'm pleased. I think we came to a fair, reasonable accommodation to the interests of the union and the interests of the taxpayers of the state," Christie said.
Christie and Burkert did not give additional details of the tentative agreement. Christie said he was leaving time for the union to lay out the deal to its members before a ratification vote.
About 105,000 people commute into New York by train each weekday, either on NJ Transit or in combination with PATH. NJ Transit had warned that only about 4 in 10 of those riders would have been able to get to New York on the extra buses the transit agency said it would provide as a contingency plan.
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The unions had been seeking a 2.9 percent annual wage increase over six years plus an increase in health insurance payments from 1.8 percent to 2 percent of straight pay. NJ Transit initially offered average 1.4 percent wage increases and health insurance payments rising from 10 percent to 20 percent.
Two emergency labor boards convened by President Obama over the last eight months had favored the union's numbers and recommended pay raises of about 2.6 percent and health payment increases of 2.5 percent. They disagreed with NJ Transit's contention that the unions' wage and health insurance demands should be judged against other state workers rather than against other rail carriers in the region.
Christie said that the contract agreement is for longer than what the board had recommended.
The uncertainty over the contract talks had left commuters worrying Friday about how they were going to get back to work on Monday. In New York, a business group estimated that each hour the rails are shut will cost businesses about $6 million.
The last NJ Transit strike was in March 1983, and it lasted 34 days.
