NJ Transit offer for rail workers includes 10-percent pay raise, health insurance cost increase

NJ Transit has offered its unionized rail workers a 10-percent pay increase over 7.5 years, according to a summary released by a coalition of union groups. But that raise would be offset by a big increase in employees’ health insurance costs, which could translate to a pay cut for about 1,400 workers, according to the unions.

The agency’s latest offer was made to an emergency board that was appointed by President Obama to avoid a potentially crippling transit strike. If the two sides fail to reach an agreement, a strike could start as early as July 16, 2016.

In a letter to its members, the New Jersey Transit Rail Labor Coalition called the offer “utterly unacceptable.” The unions have demanded a 17-percent pay raise over six years, plus a cap limiting health care expenses to two percent of each employee’s weekly pay before overtime. Nancy Snyder, a spokeswoman for NJ Transit, declined to discuss the negotiations.

NJ Transit’s rail employees have worked more than four years without a new contract, so any new deal may include retroactive pay, said Frank N. Wilner, author of a book on the Railway Labor Act of 1926, which sets the rules for the current dispute. If the unions prevail, their proposal would cost NJ Transit an additional $69.3 million in future labor costs, not including retroactive pay, according to an analysis by The Record. If the agency wins, its proposal would cost an additional $40.7 million.

The contract dispute comes at a difficult time financially for NJ Transit, which last month raised fares by nine percent and trimmed bus and train service to fill a $56-million budget hole. That gap could be dwarfed next year by the potential loss of $295 million from the Turnpike Authority, which Governor Christie has tapped in recent years to support NJ Transit’s operating expenses. NJ Transit also has benefited from about $350 million a year in Port Authority money that was redirected to transportation construction projects in New Jersey after Christie cancelled a cross-Hudson tunnel project in 2010. Those payments end this year.

“So the stakes are very high,” said Martin E. Robins, who once negotiated labor contracts for NJ Transit as a deputy executive director of the agency. “There’s a risk that the board will not be very responsive to NJ Transit.”

Source: NorthJersey.com