New Jersey's commuter rail engineers officially went on strike early on Friday after 11th-hour contract talks with the third-largest US public transit system stalled ahead of a midnight strike deadline set for meeting union wage demands.It is the first labor strike against the New Jersey Transit agency in more than 40 years.The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, which represents 450 NJ Transit engineers who drive the agency's commuter trains, said a marathon 15-hour bargaining session on Thursday broke off when management negotiators walked out of the talks.NJ Transit's Chief Executive Officer Kris Kolluri told a press conference late Thursday that the two sides had been close to reaching a deal but could not reach agreement on a wage package that the state and NJ Transit management believe is affordable. He said the two sides are due to return to the negotiating table by Sunday morning, and that he is ready to return to the table before then if the union is willing to do so.A previous tentative labor deal had been rejected by 87% of the nearly 500 members of the union who drive the trains. While that deal would have given workers their first raise since 2019 and thousands of dollars in backpay for each union member, it still would have left members far short of the pay of engineers at Amtrak and nearby commuter railroads that use the same stations.The strike was expected to idle trains serving hundreds of thousands of commuters in New Jersey and New York. The agency said in a statement it would increase bus service on existing lines and charter private buses to operate from several satellite lots to help ease the impact but warned buses would only be able to handle around 20% of rail customers.
