Long Island Rail Road riders worried about a potential strike can “rest assured” — at least for a few more months.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is prepared to request a second round of mediation in its labor dispute with LIRR workers, a move that would delay a strike until July 20, it was revealed on Thursday.
Unions representing LIRR workers, some of whom have already voted to authorize a strike, could legally walk off the job as early as March 21 if the MTA does not ask for a second Presidential Emergency Board to break the impasse.
But in a letter on Thursday, MTA Chairman Tom Prendergast said “rest assured” the authority will request more mediation if talks scheduled for next week are fruitless.
Prendergast’s letter was written in response to a missive on Wednesday from 12 local members of New York’s congressional delegation, who had urged the authority to return to the bargaining table with the LIRR unions, and to soften some of its demands.
Prendergast noted that MTA and union officials will hold negotiations before the National Mediation Board in Washington, D.C., next week.
“Rest assured, if for any reason you have been led to think otherwise, if those mediated negotiations do not result in a settlement, the MTA LIRR will request a second [Presidential Emergency Board] and there will be no legal job actions earlier than July 20, 2014,” Prendergast wrote.
All but one of the roughly 60 unions representing MTA workers are laboring without a contract. The MTA’s dispute with the LIRR unions was subject to mediation by a Presidential Emergency Board last year. The independent panel recommended in December that the MTA grant workers annual raises averaging 2.85% per year for six years.
Under the proposal, workers would make their first-ever contributions to healthcare premiums — representing about 2% of base pay — but work-rule changes would not be imposed. Last month the MTA rejected the panel’s proposal because it did not specify that the cost of raises would be covered by work-rule changes.