Newark, NJ – The conversations aimed at establishing a strike between the trains engineers and the huge near New Jersey closure railroad will recover on Saturday and continue on Sunday, said the CEO of New Jersey Transit, Kris Kolluri.
The locomotive engineers strike began Friday in the rail system with 350,000 daily passengers and left -wing travelers working from home or Looking for other ways to travel in the state or on the Hudson River to New York City.
Kolluri spoke on Saturday at Newark Broad Street station, saying that the agency is preparing for the trip of the work week by “increasing” buses to help travelers at train stations. But he warned that buses cannot handle the entire volume of the nearby rail system.
Kolluri said he and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trenes President Mark Wallace spoke and agreed to meet on Saturday. It had been uncertain if the two parties would meet before a national meeting of the Mediation Board already scheduled for Sunday.
“We are going to meet the union today. We are going to meet them tomorrow, with this goal of reaching an agreement so that we can make them work again, make our customers the reliable service they need,” Koluri said.
A message that was looking for comments on Saturday was with the union.
The strike occurs after the last round of negotiations on Thursday did not produce an agreement. It is the first transit strike in more than 40 years and occurs one month after union members rejected overwhelmingly A labor agreement with management.
Wallace walked along the picket line on Friday outside the Penn station in New York City and said engineers are committed to being on strike until they get fair treatment. The members of the union were almost unanimous in the authorization of a strike last summer, and 87% of them rejected the last agreement.
Wallace said NJ Transit needs to pay engineers a salary that is comparable to Amtrak and Long Island Railroad because engineers are going to work on those other railroads to obtain better salaries,
The union has seen constant wear in its ranks in NJ Transit, since more members leave to take better paid jobs in other railroads. The number of NJ traffic engineers has been reduced from 500 several months to approximately 400. Engineers are responsible for operating trains, ensuring safe and soft transport between stations,
New Jersey Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, said Friday that it is important to “reach a final agreement that is fair for employees and at the same time affordable for New Jersey travelers and taxpayers.”
Transit It is the third largest transit system in the country and operates buses and railways in the state, providing almost 1 million trips from Monday to Friday, even in New York City. The strike stops all traffic traffic trains, which provide public transport routes widely used between the Penn station next to the Hudson River and communities in the north of New Jersey on the other, as well as the Newark airportwhich has dealt with unrelated delays recently.
