A coalition of five rail unions at the Long Island Rail Road have confirmed their plans to request a second Presidential Emergency Board.
In September, a PEB triggered a 120-day “status quo” period during which a strike is prohibited. A second 120-day delay would be initiated if another PEB is appointed — potentially stretching the deadline into mid-May.
The core of the dispute centers on wages. News 12 reported last year that union leaders were asking for 16% raises over four years, while the MTA was offering 9.5% over three years.
If appointed, the Presidential Emergency Board would begin another process of mediation, hearing testimony from both sides, collecting data and issuing a set of recommendations.
LIRR Bargaining Coalition released the following statement:
"Next week, the coalition of rail unions at LIRR will request a second Presidential Emergency Board. We fully expect that the findings of that panel of experts will be comparable to the earlier PEB recommendations which found labor’s position both more reasonable than the MTA/LIRR overreach and our wage proposals a fair reflection of the rising cost of living on Long Island.
Management for purely political reasons has refused to sit down at a bargaining table since last July and even cynically tried to provoke a strike last year so that they wouldn’t have the strike threat in an election year.
Rather than continue this lengthy process, management should quit playing politics, meet with our five unions and hammer out a fair agreement, one that’s not concessionary, using the recommendations of the first Presidential Emergency Board as a basis for further negotiations. Let’s get this done, craft a new agreement and keep the trains running.”