Riders navigate the first weekday of a strike that has shut down the largest US commuter rail system
NEW YORK– Commuters in New York’s suburbs had to navigate numerous car, bus and subway routes to get to work Monday after a strike on the Long Island Rail Road that shut down the nation’s busiest commuter rail system entered its third day.
Unions representing railroad workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, which runs the railroad, negotiated much of Sunday, wrapping up their negotiations around 1 a.m., but failed to reach an agreement, despite pressure from the National Mediation Board and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. A spokesperson for the union workers said negotiators returned to the bargaining table early Monday.
Katie Dolgow, who teaches first graders in Manhattan, said it once took her an hour just to travel from Long Island to Queens, as more commuters turned to the area’s already notoriously congested roads. But his big concern was getting home.
“I have to take my son to daycare at 5:30 p.m. It’s going to take me longer to get home. I’m a teacher, I’m going to have to leave work at 1:30 p.m.,” she said.
The picketers got up early.
“We are simply asking for a reasonable adjustment of our salaries to the cost of living,” said Byron Lee, a locomotive engineer, outside Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. “People think you don’t deserve it.”
The LIRR serves hundreds of thousands of commuters who live along a 118-mile-long (190-kilometer-long) territory that includes Brooklyn and Queens in New York and the Hamptons, a summer playground for the rich and famous near its eastern tip. The railroad has long relieved commuters from its congested rush-hour highways.
Most of its riders live outside of New York City, in two counties with populations of nearly three million people.
The railroad shut down and workers went on strike at 12:01 a.m. Saturday after five unions representing about half its workforce walked out for the first time in three decades.
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Transportation Communications Union said in a statement Sunday that workers “are not asking for special treatment — they are simply fighting to keep up with the New York area’s skyrocketing cost of living after years without an increase.”
Unions and the MTA have been negotiating a new contract since 2023, but negotiations have stalled on wages and health care. The Trump administration got involved in September after unions demanded the appointment of a panel, but they still failed to reach an agreement.
At a news conference Sunday, Hochul said workers would lose every dollar they earn with a new contract if they remain on strike for three days.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber also called for a quick resolution.
“We’re going in a positive direction but we have to get there,” Lieber told WABC-TV.
The first to be affected by the walkout – the LIRR’s first since a two-day strike in 1994 – were the many sports fans who wanted to see the Yankees and Mets face off or the Knicks playoffs at Madison Square Garden, located directly above the Penn Station rail hub in Manhattan.
Federal law makes it extremely difficult for railroad workers to strike and even allows Congress to block a strike, but lawmakers have not intervened as they did with the nation’s freight railroads in 2022.
Would-be commuters were greeted by train departure signs showing ghost trains marked “No Passengers” rather than upcoming trains listed by destination.
Essential workers among the LIRR’s roughly 250,000 weekday riders took buses into the city from six locations on Long Island starting at 4 a.m. Monday. The evening rush hour commute runs from approximately 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Hochul, a Democrat, blamed the Trump administration for shutting down mediation in September and pushing unions into a strike. Trump, a Republican, said on his Truth Social platform that he had nothing to do with it.
“No, Kathy, this is your fault, and now looking at the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen,” Trump said.
Hochul urged businesses and agencies that employ Long Island workers to let them work from home as much as possible.
“It is impossible to completely replace LIRR service. That’s why, starting Monday, I’m asking regular commuters who can work from home to do so. Please do so,” she said.
The MTA said the unions’ initial demands to raise wages would result in significant fare increases and be disproportionate to the wages of other union workers.
The unions, which represent locomotive engineers, machinists, signalmen and others, said more substantial raises were warranted to help workers cope with inflation and the rising cost of living. ___
McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Ted Shaffrey and Joseph Frederick in New York; Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska; and Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed.
