New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy ripped NJ Transit engineers for going on strike Friday — blasting their actions as a “slap in the face” to commuters and a “mess of their own making.”
The Democrat lashed out after roughly 400 rail engineers walked off the job after marathon contract talks stalled ahead of a midnight deadline, setting off the first strike to hit the major transit system in more than 40 years.
“It did not have to come to this,” Murphy told a news conference after the morning commuter rush got underway.
“A small handful of locomotive engineers have walked off the job and shut down our entire transit system,” he continued, adding that “we’re talking just under 400 engineers in a total workforce of about 12,000.”
“It is, frankly, a mess of their own making — and it is a slap in the face of every commuter and worker who relies on NJ Transit.”
Murphy urged the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union (BLET), which represents the engineers who drive the agency’s commuter trains, to come back to the negotiating table.
“What the people of New Jersey need right now is for the members to meet their obligations to the public,” he said. “Let’s end the strike.”
“We are ready to restart negotiations, literally this second, but we need the BLET to come back to the negotiating table in good faith.”