HICKSVILLE, N.Y. — Commuters in New York City's suburbs had to navigate a gauntlet of car, bus and subway routes to get to and from work Monday, with a labor strike shutting down the Long Island Rail Road, the busiest commuter rail system in the country.
Unions representing rail workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the railroad, were still negotiating Monday evening after failing to come to an agreement through the weekend despite pressure from the National Mediation Board and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Hallie Kessler, a 24-year old speech therapist, had expected her usual one-hour commute home from a public school in the New York City borough of Queens to double in length because of the strike.
Instead, it tripled. And rather than just one LIRR train, she took two trains and then a shuttle bus.
“I’m tired. I’m ready for a nap,” Kessler said as she stepped off the bus at the Hicksville LIRR station where she parked her car. “Not thrilled about having to do it again tomorrow.”
Unionized workers, meanwhile, were 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.
James Louis, vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said union members are “just trying to keep their heads above water."
“I think we’ve negotiated enough. We’re not being greedy,” said Anthony Tartamella, a locomotive engineer who was among the LIRR workers wearing bright red union shirts outside the Hicksville station Monday afternoon. “We’re not trying to stick our hands into the cookie jar.”
Workers have gone years without a new c
ontract
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 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 evening, 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. ___
This story has been corrected to show that the body in charge of the LIRR is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, not the Metropolitan Transportation Agency.
___
McCormack reported from Concord, New Hampshire. Associated Press writers Ted Shaffrey and Joseph Frederick in New York contributed.
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