The BLET made a strong case on behalf of its members as PEB 251 held formal hearings last week in the contract dispute between BLET and New Jersey Transit.
NJT’s locomotive engineers have been seeking a new labor agreement since October 2019. NJT’s engineers are the lowest paid engineers working in commuter service in the nation. The Board’s three members (Chair Elizabeth C. Wesman and Members Barbara C. Deinhardt and Lisa Salkovitz Kohn) now have until August 23 to analyze their findings and submit their recommendations for settlement of the dispute to the President of the United States.
Unlike most workers in the private sector who fall under the National Labor Relations Act or most government workers who are governed under state public employee relations laws, a federal law specific to railroads and airlines covers collective bargaining between rail labor and management — the Railway Labor Act of 1926 (RLA). This is true even for locomotive engineers who work for a state agency, in this case NJ Transit. Under the RLA, if there is no settlement between the parties based on PEB 251’s recommendations to President Biden, then the next step under the law is a public hearing hosted by the National Mediation Board to be held on or before Friday, September 20.
The RLA spells out the process of bargaining that eventually leads to each new contract. Negotiations can take months or years because of the many steps (some of which have time limits while others do not) available to both parties. As complicated as the RLA is, it has added steps for those who work for commuter railroads, compared to freight rail.
This flowchart (PDF) illustrates how rail labor and commuter/passenger rail management reach an agreement on rates of pay and work rules. The NMB provided this timeline (PDF) for settlement of the BLET/NJT dispute.