{"id":647053,"date":"2026-05-16T17:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T17:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/647053\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T17:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T17:04:15","slug":"lirr-strike-talks-break-down-and-300000-commuters-now-stranded-as-railroad-employees-hit-picket-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/647053\/","title":{"rendered":"LIRR STRIKE: Talks break down, and 300,000 commuters now stranded as railroad employees hit picket line"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Long Island Rail Road is out of service Saturday morning after workers from five different labor unions went on strike, as promised<\/a>, after contract negotiations with the MTA<\/a> broke down.<\/p>\n

Some 300,000 daily commuters who rely on the LIRR in New York City, Nassau and Suffolk Counties now need to find an alternate way to get around, or scrap plans for long travel throughout the region. Officials have said the MTA\u2019s announced contingency plans \u2014 including shuttle buses to replace train service \u2014 would not be enough to alleviate expected traffic.<\/p>\n

All LIRR service is suspended systemwide, the MTA reported, while advising those who use the railroad to get to and from work to shift to remote working if possible.\n<\/p>\n

How long the strike and service suspension will last is unknown, but both sides were quick to point fingers for the breakdown in talks that led to the walkout that took effect just after midnight on May 16.<\/p>\n

The five unions that walked off the job \u2014 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the Transportation Communications Union (TCU) \u2014 said the MTA \u201crefused to agree to a contract that wasn\u2019t concessionary\u201d in rebuffing the recommendations of two federal panels to increase LIRR worker salaries between 4.5 and 5%.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMTA and Gov. [Kathy] Hochul determined that they would rather create frustration and gridlock for thousands of commuters, spend millions on buses during a strike and lose millions in lost revenue rather than settle a contract meant to keep pace with the rising cost of living,\u201d said Nick Peluso, serves as the National Vice President of the Transportation Communications Union.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Long Island Rail Road Atlantic Terminal is pictured on the first day of the LIRR strike in Brooklyn, May 16, 2026.REUTERS\/Angelina Katsanis<\/p>\n

MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber conceded that a strike was a lose-lose situation for everyone involved \u2014 the MTA, striking workers and commuters alike \u2014 but charged that the unions failed to negotiate with the authority in good faith.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the table this week \u2013 and especially today \u2013 we upped our proposals again and again, even as the other side reciprocated little or nothing,\u201d Lieber said early Saturday. \u201cOur last offer literally gave them everything they said they wanted in terms of pay but they rejected even that. Then we offered to conclude a contract just on the three years where we agreed and to go into binding arbitration on the fourth. Still, it was rejected. For me, it\u2019s become apparent that these unions always intended to strike. Their strategy is to inconvenience Long Islanders and try to force the MTA and the state to do a bad deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hochul echoed Lieber\u2019s beliefs that the unions had acted without good faith, but also pointed a finger of blame at the White House for contributing to a hostile environment.\n<\/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 and push these negotiations toward a strike,\u201d Hochul said early Saturday. \u201cFor weeks, the MTA has attempted to negotiate in good faith and put multiple fair offers on the table that included meaningful wage increases, but you cannot make a deal if one side refuses to engage in good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

The five unions on strike collectively represent 3,500 LIRR workers, including engineers, electricians, signal inspectors, machinists and ticket agents, who account for over half of the railroad\u2019s workforce.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the alternative without LIRR service?\u00a0
\n\"LIRRAn LIRR worker on the job at Penn Station on May 13, 2026.Photo by Dean Moses<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first time in 30 years that LIRR workers have walked off the job, and brought the nation\u2019s largest commuter rail system to a standstill. The options for commuters without cars traveling between Long Island and New York City are few and far between.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In fact, the MTA is encouraging any Long Islanders who can to work from home during the strike rather than attempt to commute.\n<\/p>\n

For those who need to go into the city, it will offer limited shuttle buses<\/a> during the morning peak, from 4;30 to 9 a.m., toward the city, and the afternoon peak, between 3 and 7 p.m., back toward Long Island. However, officials have warned that the buses will hardly be a full substitute for regular rail service.<\/p>\n

The shuttles will run every 10 minutes, departing from and returning to LIRR stations across Nassau and Suffolk Counties. Those include Huntington, Ronkonkoma, Bay Shore, Hempstead Lake State Park, Hicksville, and Mineola.<\/p>\n

Buses departing from the first two stations will offload and pick up riders from the Jamaica-179th St F train station in Queens. Those coming from the other four stations will conduct drop-offs and pick-ups from Queens\u2019 Howard Beach-JFK Airport A train station.<\/p>\n

Shuttle buses from Bay Shore, Huntington, and Ronkonkoma will also offer reverse peak service, according to the MTA website.\n<\/p>\n

The MTA is also encouraging Nassau County riders to take the Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE) to and from subway stations in eastern Queens.\n<\/p>\n

Cautious optimism gives way to disaster<\/p>\n

The strike went on after hours of talks between negotiators for the unions and the MTA on Thursday and Friday bore plenty of cautious optimism, but no deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the deadline approached, Gary Dellaverson, the MTA\u2019s outside labor counsel and chief negotiator, had been \u201cconfident\u201d that a resolution was in sight before the strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. on May 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always optimistic that this process that I\u2019ve been engaged in for basically my entire adult life can result in a successful resolution,\u201d Dellaverson said on May 14. \u201cI believe that as long as you come in in good faith and you work hard towards a resolution, you can find a common ground, you can find an agreement. So I remain confident and optimistic that that will be true. But again, as everybody knows, dancing takes two partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dellaverson said that Lieber joined the May 14 talks, which he said helped with \u201csetting the tone of how important this is\u201d to the agency.\n<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Kevin Sexton, vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen (BLET), one of the five unions negotiating with the MTA, claimed in a statement that the transit agency has \u201cfinally started negotiating real wages.\u201d<\/p>\n

But they\u00a0continued to slam<\/a> the MTA\u2019s offer of a lump-sum, rather than recurring, raise for 2026 that would make the amount it is offering for this year equivalent to a 4.5% raise as a \u201cgimmick.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, the scramble to keep the LIRR workers on the job and the system running failed. Hochul urged the MTA and unions to keep talking with each other until a deal is done, but one union leader offered no timetable on when the job action would end.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an open-ended strike. We don\u2019t know when it will end. It shouldn\u2019t have begun. Management through their provocations and game-playing own this one,\u201d said Gilman Lang, who serves as general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen.<\/p>\n

As the MTA grapples with the LIRR strike, it also needs to contend with the TWU Local 100, the union representing nearly 40,000 New York City Transit employees who keep the subways and buses running.<\/p>\n

The MTA and Local 100 held a two-hour bargaining session early Friday to negotiate a new contract<\/a>; the current collective bargaining agreement expires on Saturday. The union has yet to announce any potential job actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Long Island Rail Road is out of service Saturday morning after workers from five different labor unions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":647054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,279140,279141,451,279142,279143,278267,279144,279145,278779,38842,279146,3,279147,176174,452,453,279148],"class_list":["post-647053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-brotherhood-of-locomotive-engineers-trainmen-blet","tag-brotherhood-of-railroad-signalmen-brs","tag-headlines","tag-international-association-of-machinists-and-aerospace-workers-iamaw","tag-international-brotherhood-of-electrical-workers-ibew","tag-kevin-sexton","tag-lirr","tag-lirr-strike","tag-long-island-rail-road","tag-mta","tag-mta-chair-and-ceo-janno-lieber","tag-news","tag-nick-peluso","tag-pm-newsletter","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-transportation-communications-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}