New Jersey Railroad Strike

On May 16th, a strike began by train drivers of New Jersey Transit, a transportation company which operates in New Jersey and in some counties of New York and Pennsylvania. The company provides rail service for commuters in these areas.

Joining the strike for the first time in the region since 1983 were 450 workers, all members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainment (BLET)—one of the oldest trade unions in the American railway industry.

The striking train drivers sought a new collective bargaining agreement for wage equalization with drivers employed by other companies in New York City. 

This demand is not new. It has been raised by NJ Transit workers since at least 2019, and it has only intensified over the past five years in response to the continued decline in real wages.

The renewal negotiations involved BLET and 14 other trade unions.

The strike ended on May 8th, following the conclusion of negotiations between union leaders and the state-owned company–much to the satisfaction of both parties and the governor of New Jersey, who had been alarmed by the “disruption” the strike had caused to the community.

Indeed, the NJ Transit President Kolluri stated:

“The deal, as the governor correctly said, was fair and fiscally responsible…”

BLET secretary Haas agreeing:

“It was definitely a feeling of success that we were able to come to terms on something that I think we both can accept…”

We communists are fully aware that compromises may arise, and at times are outright inevitable, at the end of a struggle. But they mustn’t be disguised as victories for the proletariat in struggle.

On the one hand, we applaud the class solidarity shown by the railway workers and train drivers of the Tri-State area, who from Amtrak and the Long Island Rail Road supported the NJ Transit workers. On the other, we move for the union to once again become the transmission belt between the revolutionary Party and the working class in struggle. Ceasing to be, mere “institutionalized” intermediaries between the bourgeois and proletarian classes, acting in a collaborationist manner,  pursuing nothing more than the “common good,” or worse still, the “national interest.”

May the proletariat one day consign the proclamations of union bureaucrats like Haas to their rightfully miserable corner of History.