The strike by five unions Saturday that shut down the Long Island Rail Road has created an unimaginable transportation nightmare, not just for riders but whole the region.<\/p>\n
It leaves countless folks with no easy or practical way to travel<\/a> between Long Island and the city, and every vehicle on the roads subject to painful traffic.<\/p>\n And while there\u2019s been no shortage of finger-pointing for this calamity, make no mistake: One and only one party is to blame \u2014 the unions<\/a>.<\/p>\n As usual, Gov. Kathy Hochul\u2019s response was to target President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cThe disruption that Long Islanders face starting tonight is the direct result of reckless actions by the Trump Administration to cut mediation short,\u201d ranted Hochul.<\/p>\n \t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPost Editorial Board<\/p>\n Cut mediation short? Workers\u2019 contracts expired three years ago. And the mediation Team Trump arranged last year added months more to the talks.<\/p>\n Trump, meanwhile, and Hochul\u2019s GOP rival for governor, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, blasted her for the strike.<\/p>\n \u201cYou should not have allowed this to happen,\u201d chided the prez.<\/p>\n \u201cKathy Hochul failed to do her job,\u201d charged\u00a0Blakeman.<\/p>\n Huh? What was she supposed to do \u2014 order the MTA to cave<\/a> to the unions\u2019 outrageous demands and simply pass the cost to riders (or taxpayers)?<\/p>\n Those demands would translate into an 8% hike in LIRR fares, she noted.<\/p>\n Trump and Blakeman\u2019s criticism line up with that of International President of the Transport Workers Union John Samuelsen, who preposterously claimed<\/a> Hochul triggered the strike so the \u201cblame would be cast on Blakeman and the Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n Sorry: Blakeman had nothing to do with the negotiations, so there\u2019s no way Hochul could\u2019ve gotten away with blaming him.<\/p>\n No, responsibility lies solely with the five unions, which represent a mere 3,500 members, including engineers, signalmen and machinists.<\/p>\n They decided to take 300,000 daily riders \u2014 and a major slice of the regional economy (state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli puts toll at $61 million a day) \u2014 hostage to extort salaries, benefits and work rules far better than what average private-sector workers, and even other MTA employees, get.<\/p>\n Per the MTA, average cash compensation for the five unions\u2019 members topped $136,000 last year, putting them among the mostly highly paid rail workers in America.<\/p>\n Some 250 of them, as The Post reports, are hauling in six-digit overtime pay alone.<\/p>\n And though other unions accepted raises totaling 9.5% to cover the last three years, the five greedy unions demanded a boost for a fourth year, of 5%.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Nonetheless, the MTA bent over backward to come as close as possible to meeting those demands \u2014 without bankrupting the system, riders or taxpayers.<\/p>\n Its last offer included the equivalent to 4.5% pay hikes for the fourth year.<\/p>\n And still the unions struck.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s any blame left to go around, it should target the federal law that lets LIRR unions, specifically, strike \u2014 unlike, say, New York\u2019s Taylor Law, which prohibits<\/a> most public employees from such job actions.<\/p>\n That law needs to be changed: Public transportation is far too vital to allow it to be weaponized by greedy unions.<\/p>\n