NJ Transit leaders just can’t seem to get their story straight.
In arguments before Presidential Emergency Board 251 earlier this month, NJ Transit plead poverty and said it had no room in its budget for additional expenses like pay raises for locomotive engineers. Yet the agency somehow found the funds to declare a fare holiday for riders between August 26-September 2. BLET National President Eddie Hall asked, “How can an agency so strapped for cash suddenly afford to give away free rides to thousands of daily commuters?”
It’s just another example of its misplaced priorities. NJ Transit spent nearly half a billion dollars for luxury office space in 2023, but its locomotive engineers haven’t had a raise since 2019 and are the lowest paid engineers working in commuter service in the nation.
PEB 251 is expected to issue its recommendations for settlement of the contract dispute on or before August 23.