{"id":234353,"date":"2026-05-17T04:40:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/234353\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T04:40:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T04:40:13","slug":"3500-workers-walk-out-as-blet-teamsters-union-coalition-launch-lirr-strike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/234353\/","title":{"rendered":"3,500 Workers Walk Out as BLET Teamsters, Union Coalition Launch LIRR Strike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/LIRR-Image-1264x1580.png\"   alt=\"LIRR Image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tBusiest U.S. Commuter Railroad Grinds to a Halt for First Time Since 1994<\/p>\n<p class=\"single__press--item\">Press Contact: Jamie Horwitz\u00a0Phone: (202) 549-2021\u00a0Email: jhdcpr@starpower.net<\/p>\n<p>(NEW YORK) \u2013 Teamsters with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) at the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) have launched a strike alongside their bargaining coalition of 3,500 workers from five unions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe LIRR owns this strike. Union workers have sacrificed so much for the railroad for years while consistently bargaining in good faith for a fair contract,\u201d said Teamsters General President Sean M. O\u2019Brien. \u201cHundreds of thousands of commuters rely on our members\u2019 labor every day. The LIRR is stranding passengers while denying wages, benefits, and respect to BLET Teamsters and other hardworking union members. All 1.3 million members of the Teamsters Union are standing with every worker on strike. We will win this fight and the LIRR will give these essential workers the contract they\u2019ve earned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The LIRR is the busiest commuter railroad in America, with 300,000 daily passengers. It is owned and operated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). This is the first strike at the carrier in 32 years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis strike would not have happened if the MTA and LIRR offered our members the reasonable terms the government recommended multiple times. But management refused,\u201d said Mark Wallace, President of the BLET and the Teamsters Rail Conference. \u201cWe hope LIRR gets serious soon to avoid further unnecessary disruptions for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers. They know where to find us when they\u2019re ready: on the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Teamsters represent over 500 locomotive engineers at the railroad. They have gone three years without raises throughout the process of bargaining a new contract.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo every LIRR passenger whose trip is disrupted, know that the MTA left us no choice but to strike,\u201d said Gil Lang, General Chairman of the BLET\u2019s LIRR General Committee. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to be on the picket line. But after three years without raises, we cannot make any more compromises to cover for the MTA\u2019s mismanagement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.3 million hardworking people in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. Visit\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fteamster.org%2F&amp;data=05%7C02%7Ckdeniz%40teamster.org%7Cf8cd712111dd4b40e57408ddd9579fbe%7Ca97187cc27574a2985afe7a30e25fa17%7C0%7C0%7C638905692862694284%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=UwHp%2BPlCEIaEdy%2FSiEDPb%2F0WvqKcCLxnltmX81rrUno%3D&amp;reserved=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Teamster.org<\/a>\u00a0for more information. Follow us on X\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2Fteamsters%3Flang%3Den&amp;data=05%7C02%7Ckdeniz%40teamster.org%7Cf8cd712111dd4b40e57408ddd9579fbe%7Ca97187cc27574a2985afe7a30e25fa17%7C0%7C0%7C638905692862717314%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=Pvl%2BFkOi0II643SelGolMBCsBOxLHxi5y2Xa2i6Cst8%3D&amp;reserved=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">@Teamsters<\/a>\u00a0and on Facebook at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fteamsters&amp;data=05%7C02%7Ckdeniz%40teamster.org%7Cf8cd712111dd4b40e57408ddd9579fbe%7Ca97187cc27574a2985afe7a30e25fa17%7C0%7C0%7C638905692862739565%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=X8%2FGkdlRKJGXIFrV8hRqBbDCSIGxgCnzEpoe1cySVfM%3D&amp;reserved=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Facebook.com\/teamsters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Busiest U.S. Commuter Railroad Grinds to a Halt for First Time Since 1994 Press Contact: Jamie Horwitz\u00a0Phone: (202)&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[91855,91694,1606,1607,91856,9,11,10,49,51,50,12482,91857],"class_list":["post-234353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-blet","tag-brotherhood-of-locomotive-engineers-and-trainmen","tag-lirr","tag-long-island-rail-road","tag-mark-wallace","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news","tag-rail","tag-sean-m-obrein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234353","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=234353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}