LIRR Strike Day 3: 250K Commuters Affected as Talks Fall Apart
LIRR Strike Day 3: 250K Commuters Affected as Talks Fall Apart
The Spin
The LIRR unions are holding 250,000 commuters hostage for pay that already averages $136,000 a year — and that's before the six-figure overtime some members pocket. The MTA bent over backward, offering the equivalent of 4.5% for the fourth year, and the unions still walked. Blaming politicians for this mess is a distraction; the unions made this choice.
Workers haven't seen a raise since 2022, and federally appointed review panels — picked by Trump himself — said the MTA's offer wasn't enough. Negotiations collapsed over just one percentage point on wages and a health care proposal that would've cost new employees significantly more. Calling this union greed ignores that the MTA's own work rules inflate costs far more than the wage gap ever did.
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