By Joseph Ax
PRINCETON, New Jersey (Reuters) -New Jersey Transit train engineers plan to walk off the job at midnight on Thursday if their wage demands are not met, affecting hundreds of thousands of commuters in New Jersey and New York.
The strike would be the first in more than four decades for the nation’s third-largest transit system, which has been negotiating a new contract with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. The union represents 450 engineers who drive NJ Transit’s commuter trains.
The looming strike has already prompted the agency to cancel trains and buses to MetLife Stadium for pop star Shakira’s concerts on Thursday and Friday nights.
In an advisory, NJ Transit urged travelers to arrive at their destination by 11:59 p.m. on Thursday and encouraged commuters to work from home starting on Friday if possible.
The agency said it would increase bus service on existing lines and charter private buses to operate from several satellite lots in the event of a rail strike but warned that buses would only be able to handle around 20% of rail customers.
The two sides were meeting on Thursday to continue talks. Negotiators had agreed on a potential deal in March, but the union’s members voted overwhelmingly to reject it.
The union has said it is simply aiming to raise the engineers’ salaries to match those at other commuter railroads in the region. NJ Transit has said it cannot afford the pay raises that the union is seeking.
NJ Transit says the engineers currently make $135,000 on average and that management had offered a deal that would yield an average salary of $172,000. But the union has disputed those figures, saying the current average salary is actually $113,000.
The parties have exchanged accusations of bad faith bargaining.
Kris Kolluri, the agency’s chief executive, said last week that the union was “playing a game of chicken with the lives of 350,000 riders.”
“We have sought nothing more than equal pay for equal work, only to be continually rebuffed by New Jersey Transit,” Tom Haas, the union’s general chairman, said earlier this week.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
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