INDEPENDENCE, Ohio, April 27 — The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), a Division of the Teamsters Rail Conference, is being assisted by a federal mediator from the National Mediation Board (NMB) in contract negotiations with New Jersey Transit (NJT), pursuant to Section 5, First, of the Railway Labor Act.
The current round of contract negotiations began when the BLET filed its Section 6 notice on Oc-tober 1, 2019. In spite of its good faith efforts to secure a satisfactory voluntary settlement, the BLET negotiating team has deemed the Carrier’s position to be unacceptable.
Negotiations on behalf of BLET are under the direction of Jim Brown, General Chairman of the BLET’s NJT General Committee of Adjustment. The union represents approximately 475 NJT lo-comotive engineers.
“I am disappointed to have to go down this road again,” General Chairman Brown said. “After the last round of negotiations, which took over five years and was finally settled in 2016 after two Presidential Emergency Boards and just hours before a strike, I had hoped that the carrier would join us in working towards a voluntary settlement that would fairly address the needs of both sides, but that has not happened. While the membership has worked the front lines during this ongoing global pandemic, dutifully fulfilling their essential worker responsibilities, the carrier representa-tives have refused to start any meaningful contact talks. We hope that involvement of the NMB will cause the NJT to refocus on addressing the legitimate needs of the professional men and women who safely move the public daily across three states.”
Updates will be provided as developments warrant.