On Monday, November 17, the National Mediation Board (NMB) held a “Public Interest Hearing” at its offices in Washington to assess if either the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) or a coalition of five rail unions that includes BLET would accept the recommendations of Presidential Emergency Board 253 released last month.
The unions communicated to the NMB board members present that labor generally accepted the findings and analysis of the PEB as the basis of a voluntary agreement. PEB 253 in its recommendations had largely validated that the unions’ position and said what the employer was seeking was an overreach. The PEB made it clear that New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), which owns the LIRR, should bargain in good faith with the five unions in the coalition and not wrap themselves around agreements made with other labor organizations at an earlier time.
At the hearing in Washington, a lawyer for MTA rejected the Board’s findings outright and angrily attacked the NMB process and the Railway Labor Act.
The members of the five rail unions, comprising a majority of LIRR’s unionized workforce, have been without a pay raise for over three years, since April 2022.
At the request of the five unions, President Trump ordered a Presidential Emergency Board under the rules of the Railway Labor Act. If no voluntary settlement is reached over the next eight weeks, a second PEB will likely be called for in January. (The Railway Labor Act has a provision for two PEBs when the dispute involves passenger railroads.)
The coalition of five rail unions working together for a fair contract at LIRR include the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the Transportation Communications Union (TCU).