NEW YORK – Commuters in New York City’s suburbs were navigating a gauntlet of car, bus and subway routes to get to and from work Monday after a labor strike shut down the Long Island Rail Road, the busiest commuter rail system in the country.
Unions representing rail workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, which runs the railroad, continued negotiating Monday after failing to reach agreement through the weekend despite pressure from the National Mediation Board and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Katie Dolgow, who teaches first graders in Manhattan, said it had already taken her an hour just to travel from Long Island to Queens as more commuters turned to the region's already notoriously gridlocked roads. But her big concern was going home.
“I have to get my son at daycare by 5:30. It's going to take me longer getting home. I'm a teacher, I'm going to have to leave work at 1:30,” she said.
Unionized workers were out early picketing in front of major LIRR hubs, chanting slogans and holding up signs that read: “No contract. No work,” and “Equal work. Equal pay.”
“We're just asking for a reasonable cost of living adjustment on our wages,” Byron Lee, a locomotive engineer, said outside Penn Station in midtown Manhattan. “People think that we don't deserve it.”
‘Just trying to keep their heads above water’
The LIRR serves hundreds of thousands of commuters who live along a 118-mile-long (190-kilometer-long) land mass that includes Brooklyn and Queens in New York City and the Hamptons, a summertime playground for the rich and famous.
The strike started at 12:01 a.m. Saturday after five unions representing about half the rail system's workforce walked off the job. It's the first walkout for the LIRR since a two-day strike in 1994.
The unions, which represent locomotive engineers, machinists, signalmen and others, have said more substantial raises are warranted to help workers keep up with inflation and rising living costs. The MTA has said the unions’ initial demands to raise salaries would result in large fare increases and be disproportionate to other unionized workers’ pay.
“With the rate of inflation nationally, and especially in this New York area, everybody feels it,” said James Louis, vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, on Monday. “We’re just trying to keep their heads above water. We’re not asking for anything outrageous.”
Workers have gone years without a new contract
The unions and the MTA have been negotiating a new contract since 2023, but talks have stalled over salaries and healthcare.
The Trump administration got involved in September, a move that temporarily averted a strike. But months still passed without a deal.
Hochul said Sunday that workers would lose every dollar they would gain with a new contract by remaining on strike.
MTA Chairman Janno Lieber said negotiations were “headed in a positive direction” Monday morning as he dangled the prospect of LIRR service resuming Tuesday commute if a deal was reached soon.
By the afternoon, however, both sides conceded discussions were progressing slowly.
Gary Dellaverson, the MTA’s chief negotiator, on Monday afternoon said rail system officials were perhaps “overly optimistic” they could get a deal done. He said no new proposals were discussed Monday morning before union officials took a lengthy break until midafternoon.
“We continue to have optimism that we can get this done, but it’s not at the same level,” Dellaverson said outside MTA headquarters in lower Manhattan, where the two sides have been meeting. “The unions have shown us they have no sense of urgency to get this resolved.”
Quiet Monday morning rush hour
Ridership has been lighter than expected on the free but limited shuttle buses the MTA provided from a handful of locations on Long Island to New York City subway stations.
Officials had implored the roughly 250,000 riders who normally use the train system each weekday to work from home rather than commute into the city, if possible.
During the morning commute, more than 2,000 people took advantage of the shuttle service, the agency said. It had prepared for about 13,000 riders.
The buses are also being offered for the evening rush hour and are geared toward essential workers and those who can't telecommute.
College graduations hit
Molloy University and Stony Brook University on Long Island are both set to hold commencements Monday.
Officials at Stony Brook urged graduates and guests to carpool where possible as the state university's ceremony was slated to start during the afternoon rush hour.
The first impacts of the walkout were felt over the weekend as baseball fans had to find other ways to get to Citi Field in Queens to see the New York Mets take on their crosstown rivals the New York Yankees.
If the strike stretches into Tuesday, basketball fans looking to catch the New York Knicks continue their playoff run could also run into problems. Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks play their home games, is located directly above the railroad’s Penn Station hub in Manhattan.
Hochul and Trump trade blame
Hochul stopped by MTA headquarters in lower Manhattan on Monday morning as negotiations were underway, according to her office. The governor was briefed on the status of talks as well as the morning commute.
“She is pleased that the unions accepted her invitation to return to the table and encourages both parties to continue negotiating in good faith,” said Sean Butler, a Hochul spokesperson.
The Democrat, who is up for reelection this year, has blamed President Donald Trump’s administration for cutting mediation short in September and pushing the unions toward a strike.
But the Republican president, on his Truth Social platform, said he had nothing to do with it and blamed Hochul instead. ___
McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Ted Shaffrey and Joseph Frederick in New York contributed.