New Jersey Transit train engineers reach tentative deal to end strike that halted NYC routes

Cliff Notes

• New Jersey Transit’s train engineers have reached a tentative agreement, effectively ending a three-day strike that disrupted services for approximately 100,000 daily riders, significantly impacting routes to Newark airport and New York City.
• The main point of contention was the engineers’ wages; the union successfully negotiated a pay increase without jeopardising the agency’s budget or necessitating a fare hike. The deal will be presented for ratification by both the union members and the New Jersey Transit board.
• This strike marked the first transit walkout in over 40 years, forcing commuters to seek alternative transport options. The union had previously rejected a proposed labour agreement, stating that engineers’ wages needed to be competitive with similar rail services.

New Jersey Transit train engineers reach tentative deal to end strike that halted NYC routes

/// Members of the New Jersey Transit locomotive engineers union striking picket outside a rail yard in Morrisville, Pa., on May 17, 2025. (AP photo/Mike Catalini)

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Transit’s train engineers reached a tentative deal Sunday to end their three-day strike that had halted service for some 100,000 daily riders, including routes to Newark airport and across the Hudson River to New York City. The union said its members would return to work Monday, when trains would resume their regular schedules.

The walkout that began Friday was the state’s first transit strike in over 40 years, forcing people who normally rely on New Jersey Transit to take buses, cars, taxis and boats instead or consider staying home. The main sticking point had been how to accomplish a wage increase for the engineers without creating a financially disastrous domino effect for the transit agency.

A statement from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen sent by email said the terms of the agreement would be sent to the union’s 450 members who work as locomotive engineers or trainees at the passenger railroad.

“While I won’t get into the exact details of the deal reached, I will say that the only real issue was wages and we were able to reach an agreement that boosts hourly pay beyond the proposal rejected by our members last month and beyond where we were when NJ Transit’s managers walked away from the table Thursday evening,” said Tom Haas, the union’s general chairman at NJ Transit.

He added that the union was able to show management “ways to boost engineers’ wages … without causing any significant budget issue or requiring a fare increase.”

The statement said the deal would be submitted for a ratification vote by the national union and also require a vote of the New Jersey Transit board at its next regularly scheduled meeting on June 11.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy and NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri planned a Sunday evening news conference.

A month earlier, members of the union had overwhelmingly rejected a labor agreement with management.

NJ Transit — the nation’s third-largest transit system — operates buses and rail in the state, providing nearly 1 million weekday trips, including into New York City. The walkout halted all NJ Transit commuter trains, which provide heavily used public transit routes between New York City’s Penn Station on one side of the Hudson River and communities in northern New Jersey on the other, as well as the Newark airport, which has grappled with unrelated delays of its own recently.

Mark Wallace, the union’s national president, had said NJ Transit needs to pay engineers a wage that’s comparable to Amtrak and Long Island Railroad because some are leaving for jobs on those other railroads for better pay.

The union had said its members have been earning an average salary of $113,000 a year and it wanted to see an agreement for an average salary of $170,000.

NJ Transit leadership, though, disputed the union’s data, saying the engineers have average total earnings of $135,000 annually, with the highest earners exceeding $200,000.