New York<\/a> City and its eastern suburbs, ceased operations just after midnight Friday after five unions representing about half its workforce walked off the job.<\/p>\nKathy Hochul, the New York governor, said at a Sunday news conference: \u201cLet me be clear, I did not want a strike.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hochul defended the MTA\u2019s negotiations, saying: \u201cThe MTA has put fair offers on the table, in fact, many of them. And so, despite that, for the first time in 30 years, hundreds of thousands of people that rely on the LIRR are without service because of a strike.\u201d<\/p>\n
The unions and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, (MTA) the public agency that runs the railroad, have been negotiating for months on a new contract, with talks stalled over the question of workers\u2019 salaries and healthcare premiums. Donald Trump\u2019s administration tried to broker a deal, but the unions were legally allowed to strike starting at 12.01am Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust three days of a strike would erase every dollar of additional salary that workers would receive under a new contract,\u201d Hochul said. \u201cWe don\u2019t need to be here. Workers deserve better, but also New Yorkers deserve better. That\u2019s why today I\u2019m urging all parties once again to bargain at the table and to get a deal done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hochul added that the MTA has plans to deploy shuttle buses beginning at 4am Monday to help bring essential workers into the city, and additionally is offering up parking at Citi Field stadium, home of the Mets, where commuters can transfer to NYC\u2019s seven train. Regular commuters are encouraged to work from home if possible.<\/p>\n
Kevin Sexton, national vice-president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, has said no new negotiations have been scheduled.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re far apart at this point,\u201d Sexton said early Saturday. \u201cWe are truly sorry that we are in this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MTA chairman, Janno Lieber, said the agency \u201cgave the union everything they said they wanted in terms of pay\u201d and that to him it was apparent the unions always intended to walk out.<\/p>\n
The MTA was not expected to provide an update on the strike before the governor\u2019s news conference, which was scheduled for 11am.<\/p>\n
The walkout, the first for the LIRR since a two-day strike in 1994, promises to cause headaches for sports fans planning to see the Yankees and Mets battle this weekend or to watch the Knicks\u2019 playoff run at Madison Square Garden, which is located directly above the railroad\u2019s Penn Station hub in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
The station was devoid of its usual weekend bustle in the afternoon Saturday. Only a few dozen people were seen traversing the main concourse, many dragging rolling luggage from departing or arriving Amtrak trains, which are not affected by the strike.<\/p>\n
Departure boards normally showing upcoming trains by destination instead listed ghost trains marked \u201cNo Passengers\u201d. A few signs affixed to customer service windows explained that the railroad was shut down because of a strike.<\/p>\n
Access to platforms was blocked off with bicycle-rack style barricades and roll-down gates as MTA police officers stood sentry, directing people to alternative transportation.<\/p>\n
If the stoppage continues into the workweek, the roughly 250,000 people who ride the system each weekday will be forced to find other routes to the city from its Long Island suburbs. For many that likely means navigating the region\u2019s notoriously congested roads.<\/p>\n
Hochul, a Democrat, blamed the Trump administration for cutting mediation short and pushing the negotiations toward a strike. Trump, a Republican, responded on his Truth Social platform, saying he had nothing to do with the strike and \u201cnever even heard about it until this morning\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Kathy, it\u2019s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen,\u201d Trump said, renewing his endorsement of Long Island politician Bruce Blakeman, who is challenging Hochul\u2019s re-election bid. \u201cIf you can\u2019t solve it, let me know, and I\u2019ll show you how to properly get things done.\u201d<\/p>\n
The MTA has said it would provide limited shuttle buses to New York City subway stations, but that contingency plan was not envisioned to handle all the riders the system normally carries on a workday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The shutdown of the Long Island Rail Road, North America\u2019s largest commuter rail system, continued into a second…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":803276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-803275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkcity","13":"tag-ny","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}