Read our editorial on the significance of strikes here.
Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) workers across five unions voted overwhelmingly to ratify their contracts with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in June.
Through a three-day strike in mid-May, LIRR workers won a 9.5% retroactive wage increase, a 4.5% raise for 2026, and a $3,000 lump-sum payment.
The 4.5% raise for the final year of the contract falls short of the 6.5% increase workers demanded in September 2025, and the 5% increase it was later reduced to at the start of the strike in May.
Some workers who spoke with The Worker said they wanted to keep on striking to fully win their demands. “I want to know why we have to give something up to get a raise,” a worker said.
The roughly 3,500 workers had been without a contract and pay raises for three years. In September 2025, union leaders prevented an imminent strike that LIRR workers had voted for nearly unanimously by establishing a Presidential Emergency Board, which prohibited striking until May 2026.
One worker noted the collusion between the bosses and union leaders, telling The Worker, “It feels like they’re in it together” and that workers are “caught up in a political game they play with all of us.”
“What did the PEB do?”, a LIRR worker told The Worker. “[The federal government] approved it twice and we still had to go on strike. If they sided with MTA then MTA would’ve used it against us.”
Throughout their fight for better wages and conditions to keep up with inflation, LIRR workers were called “greedy” and slandered by Democrat Mafia Governor Hochul, MTA CEO Janno Lieber, and the monopoly press.
“They tell us we are the highest paid railroad workers in the country, but we have the highest cost of living in the country,” a worker said. “You can’t have it both ways.”
Workers pointed out that many of them are forced to work overtime to make ends meet. “If my straight 40 [hours a week] is $700 a month after taxes and I have to pay my mortgage and bills, I’m under water. I’m lucky if I make 70k a year. I have to rely on overtime to keep myself above water.”
Working overtime comes with steep costs. According to one worker who lives in New Jersey, “We gotta miss out on our kids lives…. The divorce rate is crazy”. After finishing his first shift, the worker goes home to take care of his daughter, and then has to drive back to work later that evening. “I got to pay for congestion pricing and pay the tolls to go over the bridges. We don’t get discounts for that. Round trip is $70, if you add gas that brings it up to $100. I’ll work 9-10 hours today, and two of those hours I’ve wasted just to get to work.”
The new contract is up for negotiation in August 2027. When asked what lessons workers have learned from their experience fighting for the contract, one worker said, “Everyone has to go on strike at the same time. Before that, each [of the unions] went on their own. It takes everyone, all the unions to be a coalition fighting for the same demands, that’s the only way it’s gonna work.”
“They shouldn’t wait till the last minute to negotiate,” another worker added. “We either get the raise or we don’t. If we don’t, then go on strike.”
Image: Long Island Rail Road workers picket in Jamaica, Queens. Credit: The Worker.
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