Trump appoints board for LIRR labor dispute

President Donald Trump has formally stepped into the ongoing contract fight between the MTA and five Long Island Rail Road unions, assigning an “emergency” mediation board to try to resolve the dispute.

The White House on Tuesday published an executive order “establishing an emergency board to investigate disputes between the Long Island Rail Road Company and certain of its employees represented by certain labor organizations.”

The move came in response to a request made Monday by five labor organizations representing around half of the LIRR’s 7,000 union workers. The request delayed a potential strike by the unions that could have otherwise begun as early as Thursday.

“Ask and you shall receive,” Kevin Sexton, national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, and spokesman for the coalition of LIRR unions involved in the dispute, said in a statement Tuesday. “We are confident that the members of that board will find our coalition’s contract proposals exceedingly reasonable.”

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The unions represent several LIRR trades, including locomotive engineers, machinists, ticket clerks, signal workers and electricians. The MTA wants the organizations to accept a three-year contract with 3% raises in the first and second years, and a 3.5% raise in the third year — the same terms accepted by several other MTA unions, including at the LIRR.

But the holdout unions say the 9.5% total wage increase doesn’t keep up with the high cost of living in New York and on Long Island, and effectively amounts to a wage cut. Union leaders on Monday said they've accepted the three-year, 9.5% terms, but want a fourth year at a 6.5% raise.

Federal law requires the president to appoint an emergency mediation board if requested by either party in a commuter railroad labor dispute, or by a state governor.

Trump’s order calls for the establishment of a three-member board comprised of a chair and two other members, none of which could have any ties to the LIRR or its employees. The board will begin its work on Thursday and “report to the President with respect to the disputes within 30 days of its creation.”

The board will come up with nonbinding recommendations on a resolution to the dispute. As dictated by federal law, the establishment of the board delays a potential work stoppage for 120 days, or through mid-January. A second board could then be empaneled, pushing a strike deadline to mid-May.

Sexton called it “a shame” that Trump’s intervention has become “necessary in order to secure a fair agreement.”

Trump has not weighed in on the LIRR contract impasse, but his secretary of transportation, Sean Duffy, when asked about the dispute last month during a visit to Penn Station, said, “the president likes when things run smoothly. He doesn’t want things to shut down.”

By Alfonso A. Castillo

alfonso.castillo@newsday.com@alfonsoreports

Alfonso Castillo has been reporting for Newsday since 1999 and covering the transportation beat since 2008. He grew up in the Bronx and Queens and now lives in Valley Stream with his wife and two sons.