a New Jersey transit strike is back in play after locomotive engineers overwhelmingly rejected a labor agreement with the rail agency setting the stage for a potential work stoppage next month 87% of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainman Union members voted against the tentative contract calling for higher wages and pointing out train crews have gone without a pay hike since 2019 now union leadership and New Jersey Transit officials have 30 days to come up with a new agreement otherwise its members are authorized to strike starting May 15th new Jersey Transit CEO Chris Kori in a statement said he's disappointed but committed to returning to the bargaining table quote for as long as it takes to get a deal done the late Tuesday union vote came just hours after Governor Murphy and transit leaders held an event outlining plans to prevent delays and disruptions that commuters have come to expect during summer months the last time contract negotiations at New Jersey Transit got close to a strike was 2016 when the deal was settled just hours before the deadline before that the last railroad strike was 1983 tom Hos is the general chairman of the Locomotive Engineers Union and says despite the vote his members are still hoping to avoid a strike they don't feel this agreement does enough to address the the economic reality that engineers face we are paid significantly less than engineers at other commuter railroads other passenger railroads uh not only in our area but around the country they're very annoyed it's It's been five years actually more than five years that we've been at this trying to to reach an agreement and they're just tired for all the latest I'm joined by Bergen Record and Northj jersey.com transportation reporter Colleen Wilson colleen great to see you great to have you for a day like this um let me ask you first i spoke with Tom Hos earlier and he said you know I'm going to give credit where it's due chris Galori has done a lot to come to the table um but they're really stuck on these wages what are you hearing about where negotiations might go yeah I think it's a headscratcher for transit i think I'm sure Tom Hos is um you know trying to navigate us pretty uncertain waters right now with his membership because clearly there was a disconnect there between uh you know what they wanted to see in this contract and what they didn't get uh so yeah it's going to be back to the table for them uh to figure out what was missing what other demands do members have are they expecting um and what is transit able to continue to do you know they're in a tough spot as well trying to be good stewards of the taxpayer money but uh trying to you know provide wages that their engineers valued members of their team can be comfortable with yeah i mean that vote the timing of it sort of seemed like an extra gut punch to folks at New Jersey Transit because they had that big event with the governor talking about all the investments they've made all the things that they've done to help prevent another summer of hell um and then this vote happens where it looks more likely that commuters will have one what have you heard from the governor's office and from New Jersey Transit yeah you know I think um Chris Calori has tried to set a new tone and I think as you heard that has been uh wellreceived by the union but um it they've got more work to do i you know it's as simple as that now they have 30 days to you know go back to it and and try to work on this more but 30 days is going to go by really quickly I think and it's going to be I think a chaotic time uh because these things they just take so much time you know you have to go back to your members here's what they're saying here's what's here's what we're doing here's where we've changed now you go back to your lawyers they have to review it's just a very um Yeah it's a tedious process yeah are they Is New Jersey Transit currently facing staffing shortages they've done a lot to bring folks on in the last couple of years but where do things stand uh there we have not seen that you know under Kevin Corbett and and with Governor Murphy's direction they have taken great lengths to uh restock their uh their roster of locomotive engineers uh and that has not been a cause of cancellations in a significant way uh in the last couple of years so you know I think perhaps that's something to look at because that is the threat from the locomotive engineers is that they could go to a competitor railroad Amtrak Long Island Railroad Metro North maybe uh you know something like that uh if they think they can make more money uh but you know I don't think we've seen that in a significant way yet it is something to look out for um let me switch gears a little bit to another mode of transportation the Turnpike Authority um has said as you reported it'll move forward um with a pretty massive more than nearly $2 billion contract with Transcore for Easy Pass Services there was a lot of back and forth about this why are they moving forward um when there was a protest to that bid right so Conduitin has been the longtime provider of easy pass services for the Turnpike Authority so when they didn't get that award uh back in September they uh they protested and and a large part of that was because they said their offer was $250 million cheaper than Transcore among many many other reasons that they've laid out in extensive I mean literally thousands of documents exchanged between turnpike authority the bid proposals from uh Conduit and Transcore and the other bidder uh so that process has been playing out over several months where they went through a hearing uh they had to do oral presentations uh and arguments and now uh what we got yesterday was the final decision from the turnpike authority uh hearing officer that uh disagreed with and did not find merit to conduit's arguments what would this mean practically very quickly for for drivers so there's going to be a transition period uh between uh going from a a conduit system to a transcore system that can take years uh in some cases so uh there'll be a new system eventually uh we don't know when we don't have all the details there yet and also the last thing I'll say is conduit could sue over this so that could add a whole other wrinkle as far as uh you know what's to come what's going to happen and how is this going to play out yeah certainly may not be over colleen Wilson thanks so much for your time good to see you thanks for having me [Music]