{"id":225698,"date":"2026-05-09T13:57:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:57:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/225698\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T13:57:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T13:57:47","slug":"lirr-workers-holding-day-of-action-as-strike-looms-over-mta-negotiations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/225698\/","title":{"rendered":"LIRR workers holding day of action as strike looms over MTA negotiations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unions representing thousands of Long Island Rail Road workers are set to rally Saturday amid a dispute<\/a> with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that could trigger their first strike in decades<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The five LIRR workers unions said the demonstration at Massapequa Station in Nassau County is part of a day of action after contract negotiations with the MTA stalled.<\/p>\n

The rally is set to start at around 10 a.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Without a deal, the commuter rail’s first strike since June 1994 could start as soon as May 16, affecting hundreds of thousands of daily riders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Where negotiations stand\u00a0<\/p>\n

Negotiations are ongoing, but the sides have been giving different narratives<\/a> about how the talks are progressing.<\/p>\n

The unions said Friday that talks stalled. But the MTA said they got closer to an agreement and were waiting for the union to respond to new proposals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s time for everyone to get serious about the fact that if you go on strike for one day, you are literally flushing money down the toilet for your workers, and I don’t think these unions really want to do that. We are close enough that we should be able to resolve this,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The MTA said it offered a 3% pay raise, while the unions said they’re asking for 5%. The agency warned the 2% gap could lead to increased fares systemwide, including on the LIRR, Metro-North Railroad, and New York City subways and buses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response to Lieber’s statement, the unions said there was no urgency from the MTA and no official talks were scheduled until Monday.<\/p>\n

“We wanted to negotiate over the last 40 days … so that we wouldn’t be facing this. Unfortunately, we have not had a willing partner,” said Gil Lang, general chairman for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lieber said he expected casual discussions to occur over the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LIRR strike contingency plan<\/p>\n

The MTA shared its initial Long Island Rail Road strike contingency plan for some 300,000 riders\u00a0on its website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the event of a shutdown, it says shuttle bus service would be provided from five Long Island locations to subway stations in Queens:<\/p>\n

Bay Shore<\/a>\u00a0(LIRR) to Howard Beach-JFK Airport AHempstead Lake State Park, near\u00a0Lakeview<\/a>\u00a0(LIRR), to Howard Beach-JFK Airport AHicksville<\/a>\u00a0(LIRR) to Howard Beach-JFK Airport AHuntington<\/a>\u00a0(LIRR) to Jamaica-179 St F at Hillside Av and 179 StMineola<\/a>\u00a0(LIRR) to Howard Beach-JFK Airport ARonkonkoma<\/a>\u00a0(LIRR) to Jamaica-179 St F at Hillside Av and 179 St<\/p>\n

The agency also encouraged riders to work from home during the strike, if possible.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unions representing thousands of Long Island Rail Road workers are set to rally Saturday amid a dispute with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1607,28096,141,774,9,11,10,773],"class_list":["post-225698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-long-island-rail-road","tag-massapequa","tag-mta","tag-nassau-county","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-suffolk-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}