Transport Workers Union President and leading Irish American labor leader John Samuelsen has laid the blame for the Long Island Rail Road strike which started this morning firmly at the door of New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
"This is a strike that was totally avoidable," he told the Irish Echo this afternoon. "Hochul turned down every opportunity to agree a new contract."
And while the TWU chief doesn't represent the majority of the striking workers, he says that efforts to use TWU members to "undermine" the action would not be tolerated. "We're supporting the striking LIRR workers to the hilt," he said. "There was an effort to use our drivers to provide a bus shuttle service to undermine the strike but we have put a stop to that. The LIRR workers are fighting the good fight and whatever wage increase they win will be won also for the New York Transit and Metro North workers."
Samuelsen says the demand of the the five LIRR unions, representing 3,500 workers, for a 3.6 per cent wage hike is "not extravagant". "It's a rational and reasonable demand," he said. "It's really pretty simple: Hochul is to blame. She chose not to accept the recommendation of a bipartisan federal panel and as a result she has left 300,000 LIRR riders stranded."
The New York Times reports today that the first LIRR strike in more than 30 years "comes after three years of failed contract negotiations, two federal interventions and a volley of last-minute bargaining".
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Kevin Sexton, a vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen which has come out on strike told the Times: “We are truly sorry that we’re in this situation. But this is why you have to take collective bargaining seriously.”
MTA CEO Janno Lieber said negotiations with unions failed because authority refused "to make a deal that puts it on riders and taxpayers to fund outsized wage increases – far beyond what anyone else at the MTA is getting – and for folks who are already the highest-paid railroad workers in the country".
