How Hochul can keep the LIRR running

A group of unions threatens to close the Long Island railway road, the most popular suburban rail operation in the country, with a strike at the end of next week if officials do not go to their requests. But instead of capitulating, Governor Hochul can operate the trains: it can apply New York’s ban to strikes from public employees.

The state of the Empire has never allowed public employees to leave the work and the law of the state has long explicitly prohibited strikes. The 1967 Taylor law reflects fundamental recognition of the difference between working for the government – offering essential services – and in the private sector. The LIRR does not make a profit or does not pay dividends. It’s just another public agency within the MTA, another public agency.

But the LIRR is treated differently due to a wrinkle of federal law covering the railways, which have long been considered to pre -write Taylor’s law (and its strike ban). The Federal Railway Labor Act rather allows the railway unions to strike in certain circumstances, and the LIRR unions have long used it to their advantage.

The constant threat of strikes on the LIRR makes it difficult for management to postpone union requests, and even less to make the operation more effective. Lirr has what is almost certainly the employees of the country’s best paid suburban rails. A significant number receives more than $ 100,000 per year only in overtime.

But instead of confronting this debauchery and risking a strike, the way a business in the private sector must remain competitive, the management of the LIRR and the MTA was able to ask more money’s runners and taxpayers. And the unions know this.

Lirr Bloat was one of the reasons why the companies at the bottom of the state were blocked by paying the tax on MTA pay and he also raised the prices. The high operating costs, on the metro and suburbs train lines, have helped justify the toll of congestion prices which now strikes the drivers entering Manhattan.

Current unions’ requests have not been published, but they have rejected the LIRR offer for 9.8% increased over three years, exceeding inflation while preserving the advantages dressed in LIRR platinum. They also fell on suggestions for changes in working rules responsible for the agency’s overtime figures, and they are preparing to close the service on September 18.
But here is the thing: the management of Hochul and Lirr was much better than the former governors.

Indeed, the strike ban can be applied to the LIRR. The agency attempted to use the law in the late 1970s, but then lost to the United States Supreme Court. A great reason: the LIRR was both a nutshell and a freight operation.

But things have changed: the LIRR privatized its freight operation in 1997. It is now exclusively a suburban service, operated exclusively in New York by a New York State Agency. The argument to apply federal rules – that interstate trade is involved – is lower than ever.

A similar situation took place on Staten Island almost at the same time as the LIRR case but with a very different result.

The Railway of Staten Island had been built in private and managed before being acquired and publicly managed by the MTA. But when MTA officials tried to apply Taylor’s law, they succeeded. A panel of the Federal Court of Appeal of three judges (including the future judge of the Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg) fell on the side of the MTA in 1988, noting that the Congress had established a distinction between the previous use of a railway (within the framework of a system of interstate freight) and its current use (as a suburban service managed by the government).

Instead of being intimidated by LIRR unions, Hochul and MTA management should defend themselves for horsemen and taxpayers. They should immediately invoke their powers under the sections of civil law 210 and 211 to prevent a strike.

Since the unions have already threatened, there is evidence and provoked to obtain an order from the court preventing them from following it. LIRR unions are said to be faced with paralyzing financial sanctions and their leaders would risk prison. Both were imposed on the Transport Workers section, Section 100, which led the 2005 illegal metro strike against New York, and then had to sell its headquarters.

The legal dispute is inevitable each time the jurisdiction of the jurisdiction of the State and the federation overlap, but the officials of the State have the facts on their side. Management – and taxpayers and riders – are likely to prevail.

In this regard, Hochul has the possibility not only to operate the long Island railway road, but also to obtain its finances and operations on a more sustainable track.

Girardin is a member of the Manhattan Institute.