i'm Ted Goldberg outside of Newark Penn Station where NJ Transit engineers have been picketing since about midnight today right when the strike first began as for how long the strike could go on for this strike is going to go on for as long as New Jersey Transit allows it to new Jersey Transit and the union representing its engineers are each accusing the other side of walking away from the negotiating table last night leading to pickets in Newark and across the system we've been bargaining in good faith uh trying to reach a deal uh we didn't have a press conference set up because we fully uh expected to reach a deal we want nothing more than to be back at work i mean all these guys right here are not getting paid today and we're not running our trains we're not serving the passengers that we really care about but the fact of the matter is that we have no other way to address this this enormous inequity that we see the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen or BLET is part of the National Teamsters Union teamsters general president Shawn O'Brien gave a colorful summary of where things stand saying railroad executives had every opportunity to reach a fair deal but these effing clowns chose to waste money on decorating their lavish penthouse offices new Jersey Transit could have avoided this strike but they blew it the breakdown in negotiations has to do with salary with the union claiming its wages are far below fellow engineers across the region i don't quite agree with the notion that somebody who lives in New Jersey and works in New Jersey should be entitled to make a wage that is as if they live and work in New York nj Transit President Chris Caller has also criticized union leadership for agreeing to a handshake deal only for the union rank and file to overwhelmingly vote it down it was a deal that was worth putting before the membership because it started to address some of the inequity that we saw but it didn't do nearly enough to address it you know in the eyes of the membership and so ultimately they had to be the ones to speak and they did and they they so 87% of the members said that this was simply not enough and I agree with them the strike came as a nasty surprise for late night travelers forced to scramble to get home as I was buying the tickets I got the information it was like you are you aware that there's a strike very soon and I was like what strike so I took the path here instead of the NJ transit cuz like I knew in advance interesting to know that the trains are not working i was hoping to catch the the the train to um Manhattan but we're going to have to find a way probably go to get an Uber or something uh so obviously was this wasn't planned but I mean I hope there's a way travelers had similar issues today as transit folks worked hard to help people find other ways to get around i was thinking of the bus but at Port Authority but here or they have a bus here right um but other than that now I forgot about the path if I'd take the path tree i took the path here instead to Penn and now I'm going to see if there's supplemental bus service that'll take me to somewhere close to Trenton and then I still be able to take SEPTA but that's all I can say for now it's really sucks i had to uh change my my ticket uh at a higher premium uh to uh to to leave from Newark instead of from uh New York Pen it is what it is you have to roll with it when things happen union leadership says the next round of negotiations will be with the National Mediation Board Sunday in Newark outside Penn Station I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight News