Before the morning sun crests the skyline of New Jersey, long before office buildings light up and city streets fill with the motion of daily life, train engineers are already at work. Their quiet and deliberate actions are the unseen force that powers the region's daily routine. They enter the cabs of locomotives in Newark, Trenton, Hoboken, and countless smaller towns across the state. They flip switches, scan gauges, test brakes, and prepare to guide thousands of tons of steel through tunnels, bridges, and the heart of the region’s cities. Their movements are precise, the result of years of training and experience. They carry the weight of an entire region’s schedule on their shoulders. And for the past six years, they have done all this without a contract.
Since 2019, the engineers of New Jersey Transit have kept the system running. Through a global pandemic, staffing shortages, and daily logistical hurdles, they have steadfastly committed to public service. They have watched colleagues in neighboring systems like Amtrak, Metro-North, and the Long Island Rail Road receive regular wage increases and secure labor agreements recognizing their value. Meanwhile, their pay has remained frozen. Costs have climbed steadily around them. Groceries are more expensive. Rent is higher. Gas, childcare, and medical bills have risen. But their paychecks have not. The men and women who make NJ Transit run have watched their real earnings diminish yearly, even as their responsibilities remain unchanged.
What began as quiet frustration has now become a louder demand for fairness. The union proposes a 14 percent wage increase phased in by 2028. That demand is not arbitrary. It is designed to close the gap between NJ Transit engineers and their peers in the region. It is meant to restore some ground they have lost since their last raise in 2019. However, NJ Transit offers a raise of only 4 percent. The engineers see this as a refusal to recognize their labor and humanity. After years of delay, that offer falls woefully short of what they need to keep pace with inflation, much less earn a wage comparable to their colleagues across the river.
The union’s demands are not excessive. A fourteen percent wage increase over the next three years is not just about catching up with inflation. It is about closing the gap between NJ Transit and every other central commuter rail agency in the region. Engineers at Amtrak and the LIRR earn significantly more for doing the same work. The discrepancy is more than a technicality. It sends a message. It tells NJ Transit engineers that their labor is worth less. That message, delivered year after year through pay stubs and fruitless bargaining sessions, has had a cumulative effect.
The offer from NJ Transit does little to change that perception. After six years of stagnation, a four percent raise is not viewed as a sincere attempt to make amends. It is seen as a dismissal. The engineers, who have stayed on the job through every challenge and crisis, see the proposal as a continuation of the same disregard they have experienced for years. And so, when the agreement came to a vote in April, they voted it down. Overwhelmingly. Eighty-seven percent rejected the deal. The union clarified that it is no longer willing to settle for symbolic gestures and inadequate pay. They want real movement. They want respect to be reflected in wages, not just in words.
The consequences of that impasse are not theoretical. They are immediate and tangible. The engineers are prepared to strike if no agreement is reached by May sixteenth. The ripple effects will be felt across the region. Hundreds of thousands of commuters depend on NJ Transit trains every day. Some workers rely on those trains to reach offices in Manhattan, students who ride them to class, and patients who take them to medical appointments. Without the engineers, those trains will sit idle, disrupting the daily lives of countless individuals. Already, NJ Transit has begun canceling services, including trains to upcoming concerts at MetLife Stadium. Those cancellations preview what is to come if an agreement is not reached.
No one wants a strike. The engineers do not take this step lightly. They understand the disruption it will cause. But they also understand that without leverage, there is no progress. They know that polite requests have gone unheard. They know that showing up and doing their job, year after year without a contract, has not earned them fair treatment. And so they are drawing a line.
Negotiations continue under the supervision of the National Mediation Board, a federal agency that has intervened to prevent a service shutdown. The Board's role is facilitating negotiations and preventing labor disputes from disrupting essential services. The meetings are high-stakes and emotionally charged. A lot is riding on them for both sides. Yet amid the technical discussions about percentages and retroactive pay, the deeper issue remains simple. This is about value. This is about what New Jersey is willing to pay for the people who keep its economy moving. Whether the state views public service as something worth investing in or to be squeezed and neglected.
The political implications of this fight are hard to ignore. New Jersey has a proud labor history and a Democratic majority that has long proclaimed its support for working people. But proclamations do not pay bills. Values must be demonstrated in action. And so far, those actions have not aligned with the rhetoric. This is a moment of truth for Democratic leaders in the state. They cannot remain silent while public servants are pushed to the brink. They cannot claim to support labor while presiding over a public agency that treats its workers as expendable.
The engineers of NJ Transit have asked for a seat at the table. They have asked for fairness, not favors. They have asked to be treated as equals in a region where others doing the same job are paid more. That is not radical. That is not unreasonable. That is a basic request for equity. And now, that request has become a demand. If leaders in New Jersey truly believe in dignity for labor, they must act. They must engage in these negotiations with seriousness and respect. They must recognize that the health of the state’s transportation system depends on the people who operate it. And they must come to an agreement that honors those workers not just with words but with meaningful, just compensation.
The engineers are not asking for the impossible. They are asking to be seen, heard, and valued in the way that others doing the same work already are. New Jersey can choose to meet them with respect and resolve or face the consequences of continued inaction. The right path is clear. The time to take it is now.
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