the strike hasn't just upended train riders commutes as you heard It also means some passengers are shelling out more money to find alternate routes There's potential for significant economic impact if the strike lasts for any length of time like it did 40 years ago especially if the union and New Jersey transit leaders can't agree on language around this meto clause which is upending talks For more on that and how these negotiations work we talked to Bill Dwire a labor negotiation expert at Rutgers University Bill Dwire thanks so much for your time I think we can't make light of the fact regardless of how many times it's been said today that this has not happened in four decades Can you explain a little bit of the historical significance here yeah it's a major historical significance um you know it's um disrupting a lot of people's commutes and routines uh creating a lot of inconvenience at at the very least for a lot of people Um and you know financially it's impacting New Jersey Transit in a negative way There are a lot of ramifications as to what's going on here There's been much made of the fact that it seems like the head and the body of the union were clearly disconnected um because there was an agreement on the table the heads of the union uh did a handshake so to speak on it with the governor's office with Chris Calori um and then it fell apart How uh common is something like that when we're talking about negotiations at this level it's very unusual Um you know Nancy Pelosi used to say uh you never take anything for a vote that you don't know what the outcome's going to be right um which is sage advice Um but I've never seen uh a ratification vote get voted down by such a strong margin I mean it was 90% of the voters of the voting members of the union voted it down And it wasn't due to low voter turnout either Close to 90% of the membership voted So it's an indication that the U expectations of the membership and leadership were just completely out of alignment The governor and Chris Galorei um have talked quite a bit since last night and and in the days leading up to this to the fact that it's not just about the wages that they're asking for It's also some of the parody that could be brought from other unions this me too clause um that they've been talking about or most favored nation Um can you explain a little bit more about what that is and why the state says it puts them on the hook to perhaps make up wages for other unions sure Let me preface it by saying I haven't seen the specific language in the contract that they're referring to but in general me too clauses are parody clauses and they say that when there are multiple unions under one employer which is the case here there are 14 other unions here um whatever benefit one union gets the others are entitled to also So if there are additional benefits in terms of compensation uh the other unions would be entitled to that unless that parody was limited to only things like work rules or working conditions other than salary and compensation But based on the comments that were made last night by um Chris Kori it sounds as though the compensations included in these meto clauses with these other unions which raises the stakes considerably Uh the numbers that were thrown out last night were you know instead of $10 million more because of the other unions being involved this is now going to cost you know a hundred million dollars or more Um that's consider that's a real problem It really comes down to that language that they're negotiating there in the contract Um is there one side that sort of has the upper hand here i mean obviously these workers are going without pay The state did pass um some laws that allows them to apply for unemployment benefits But on the same token New Jersey Transits out a heck of a lot of money trying to contract these bus companies to make up for some of the ridership Yeah Yeah I think in terms of public sentiment right now at least in the short term uh the workers the union uh is um probably on the more positive side if you will Um but I think that's shortlived because you know um health benefits typically go monthtomonth And if the employer were to stop paying for health care benefits at least their contribution for the employees then the employees potentially could be without benefits come the end of uh the end of the month and that could be a considerable problem for them and their families So um that's something to consider over the longer term Yeah particularly if this goes on um is protracted All right Bill Dwire is a negotiations expert uh with Ruters University Bill thanks so much My pleasure