1,000 rail workers rally as NJ Transit strike looms

Boss media whips up anti-labor scare campaign

Militant/Jacob Perasso

March 5 rally against New Jersey Transit concession demands. Some 4,200 unionists, who have been without a contract for five years, have set March 13 as strike deadline.

BY JACOB PERASSO

WOODBRIDGE, N.J. — A thousand workers — members of 11 rail unions and their supporters — rallied here March 5 to demand New Jersey Transit bosses back off concession demands and sign a contract. The railroad’s 4,200 workers are represented by a coalition of unions. The contract expired five years ago.

“Long Island Rail Road will stand by you,” Anthony Simon, general chairman of SMART/UTU union on the LIRR, told those at the rally. Workers there waged a similar contract fight in 2014.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and the big business media are whipping up a scare campaign seeking to turn the tens of thousands who rely on government-run New Jersey Transit to get to work against rail workers.

Commuters will be the ones to pay, Christie told the press March 3, saying, “It comes from them, either in fares, in taxes or a combination of both.”

“The newspapers say we are demanding too much,” said Dave Decker, general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, pointing to the anti-union campaign in the press. “It’s outrageous that they want us to accept a substandard agreement.”

The unions are seeking a contract from July 2011 through the end of 2017 with retroactive pay and wage increases of 17 percent over six and a half years. Rail bosses offer a 10.4 percent increase over seven and a half years. Two federal labor boards sided with the unions last year.

The unions have offered to pay up to 2.5 percent of their average base pay toward medical coverage. They currently pay about 1.8 percent or some $82 a month.

New Jersey Transit wants workers to pay 10 to 20 percent of their premiums for medical and prescription insurance, depending on their health plan or when they were hired, which could cost $460 a month for some workers, federal mediators say. Workers told the Militant it could be as much as $600. The company is offering a one-time $1,000 lump-sum signing bonus.

A breakdown in negotiations could lead to a work stoppage as early as March 13. New Jersey Transit bosses say their buses, PATH trains and area ferries would accommodate only one-third of the estimated 110,000 passengers who commute to New York City each weekday.

“We have the support of our families and friends,” Robert Breen, 42, a member of Transportation Communications Union Local 5045, told the Militant, “and we are ready for a strike.”

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