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NJ Transit strike averted for now
Following a summer of delays and service outages, President Biden just signed an order to keep NJ Transit workers from walking off the job for at least the next few months. However, do riders still need to worry about a potential strike? FOX 5 NY's Teresa Priolo has the details.
President Joe Biden has signed an executive order delaying a strike by NJ Transit's locomotive engineers and trainmen that could have crippled the daily commute.
One particular union called the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Union has been without a contract for four years. They say that they are the lowest-paid engineers out of any rail workers in the country.
If they don't get it, they are threatening a walkout. However, before that could happen, Biden got involved under the Federal Railway Labor Act which keeps trains running.
FILE - U.S. President Joe Biden holds a press conference on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, Nov. 14, 2022. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
In the order, Biden says that he will create a Presidential Emergency Board to help resolve the dispute. They have 30 days to form that board.
The panel of neutral experts would review the officers from both sides and make a non-binding recommendation.
If that goes nowhere, NJ Gov. Phil Murphy can request another emergency board. This likely won't happen before March 2025.
"NJ TRANSIT has and will continue to engage in good faith negotiations that fairly and best represents the interests of NJ TRANSIT’s hundreds of thousands of customers, as well as New Jersey taxpayers. We remain fully committed to an amicable resolution to these contract talks," NJ Transit said in a statement to FOX 5.
The order prevents NJ Transit's engineers and trainmen from striking for 120 days.