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Tentative deal ends NJ Transit strike with full service to resume Tuesday, officials say
By
Stephen Nessen
,
Ramsey Khalifeh
,
Catalina Gonella
and
Phil Corso
Published May 18, 2025
Modified May 18, 2025
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Kena Betancur/Getty Images
By
Stephen Nessen
,
Ramsey Khalifeh
,
Catalina Gonella
and
Phil Corso
Published May 18, 2025
Modified May 18, 2025
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A strike that shut down all NJ Transit rail service on Friday has ended, with full service scheduled to resume Tuesday morning, according to state officials and the union representing locomotive engineers.
The union had initially said service would resume Monday. But NJ Transit later clarified it needs about 24 hours to inspect and prepare tracks, trains and other infrastructure before restarting. Contingency bus service will remain in effect through Monday, officials said.
NJ Transit President and CEO Kris Kolluri encouraged commuters to work from home if possible on Monday.
"This additional time is critical to ensuring a safe and orderly restart of service," he said. “This is an extraordinarily complex operation. We run hundreds of trains a day, and so we have to make sure all the equipment is where it needs to be. All the safety inspections have been done. All the track inspections have been done.”
NJ Transit engineers walked off the job at midnight Friday after contract negotiations broke down, triggering the first major railroad strike in the Garden State since 1983. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen demanded higher pay, but NJ Transit officials argued the demands were too steep.
Sunday’s announcement of an agreement marks the end of months-long negotiations over a new contract for the roughly 450 engineers, who have gone six years without a raise or updated contract.
“While I won’t get into the exact details of the deal reached, I will say that the only real issue was wages and we were able to reach an agreement that boosts hourly pay beyond the proposal rejected by our members last month and beyond where we were when NJ Transit’s managers walked away from the table Thursday evening,” Tom Haas, BLET’s general chairman at NJ Transit, said in a statement.
He continued, “We also were able to show management ways to boost engineers’ wages that will help NJT with retention and recruitment, without causing any significant budget issue or requiring a fare increase."
The deal remains tentative and must still be ratified by BLET’s rank-and-file members as well as NJ Transit’s board. The union said a vote will be conducted electronically and NJ Transit’s board is expected to vote on the deal at its next scheduled meeting on June 11.
Contract language and dollar figures will be released publicly after union members have had a chance to review them, officials said.
NJ Transit and BLET leaders had previously reached a tentative agreement in March, but union members voted it down the following month, setting the stage for the strike. When asked why this deal might succeed, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said there was “a real feeling that we landed in a good place.”
"This is a very good day for New Jersey," Murphy said. "The sound you probably hear is our state’s commuters breathing a collective sigh of relief.”
Kolluri said the agency better understood union concerns this time around and worked with leaders to address specific contract provisions.
"The past is the past, but I think we learned some important lessons on what the membership wanted, and I think the union this time did a really good job of clarifying, if you will, their positions," he said.
He also said the cost of the agreement remained within a manageable range, calling it “fair and fiscally responsible.”
NJ Transit had estimated the strike was costing the agency roughly $4 million per day.
The national BLET organization thanked members of Congress for not intervening in the strike under the Railway Labor Act, saying the hands-off approach helped both sides reach a resolution.
“Allowing strikes to happen encourages settlement rather than stonewalling,” BLET National President Mark Wallace said in a statement.
Before Sunday’s deal, NJ Transit’s engineers were the lowest-paid among major commuter railroads in the country, according to the union, despite operating in one of the most expensive metro areas.
The end of the strike is welcome news for thousands of Beyoncé fans, who will now have a more convenient way to reach MetLife Stadium for her five-show run starting Thursday.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Tagged
new jersey
transportation
Stephen Nessen
Stephen Nessen covers transportation. Since 2008 he has reported on everything from Occupy Wall Street, the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site, Hurricane Sandy, to Trump’s campaign for president. His transportation reporting has taken him everywhere from the MTA’s secret Rail Control Center to the gleaming subways of Seoul. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Ramsey Khalifeh
Ramsey Khalifeh is a transportation reporter on the NYC Accountability desk covering the largest transit system in the country. He was previously a general assignment reporter at Gothamist and worked on the Boston Globe's metro and copy desk. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Catalina Gonella
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Phil Corso
Phil Corso is the evening news editor at WNYC/Gothamist. Got a tip? Email [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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