High-stake NJ Transit strike talks to pick up again Saturday, railroad boss says
High-stake talks between striking train engineers and New Jersey’s huge commuter railroad will pick back up again Saturday, NJ Transit CEO Kris Kolluri said — a day after the union-led walkout brought the state’s transportation system to a screeching halt.The strike action kicked off Friday when roughly 400 locomotive engineers walked off the job after marathon contract talks tied to a pay dispute abruptly stalled, triggering the first strike to hit the major transport system in more than 40 years.Gov.Phil Murphy and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) quickly blamed one another for the thwarted negotiations on Friday, but the transit CEO said the union boss had since agreed to meet again Saturday.
“We’re going to meet the union today,” Kolluri told reporters at Newark’s Broad Street Station early Saturday.The meeting is set to take place at 1 p.m.“We’re going to meet them tomorrow, with this goal of getting to a deal so we can get them back to work, get our customers the reliable service they need.”Initially, it was unclear whether the two sides would sit-down again before a National Mediation Board meeting that was already scheduled for Sunday.The union didn’t immediately comment on news of the Saturday meeting.Meanwhile, Kolluri insisted the agency was preparing to alleviate chaos during next week’s work commute by “surging” buses to help scores of commuters at train stations.He cautioned, though, that the additional buses wouldn’t be able to cope with the entire volume of the commuter rail system.
The saga erupted when the latest round of negotiations between NJ Transit and BLET, which represents the engineers who drive the agency’s commuter trains, stalled late Thursday ahead of a midnight deadline.The union, which says it is seeking its first pay increase for employees since 2019, accused transit management negotiators of walking out of the bargaining talks early.The governor, however, publicly blasted...