Service on the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) Main Line will be disrupted during a weekend in November so the MTA can perform infrastructure work, the agency said on Monday impacting the primary rail service between New York City and Nassau and Suffolk Counties. LIRR crews will perform signal upgrade work on the Main Line from 12:15 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, to 2:15 a.m. Monday, Nov. 10.
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."
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) are threatening over pay raises. According to Newsday, the MTA wants BLET and unions negotiating with it to take a three-year contract with 3% raises in the first and second years, and a 3.5% raise in the third year. But unions said the 9.5% increase does not keep up with the local cost of living.
Anyone traveling on the MTA's Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) or Metro-North Railroad can travel between stops within NYC stops using a CityTicket for $5 during off-peak hours or $7 during peak hours. In other words, New Yorkers can use the LIRR and Metro-North, even if they are not heading into the city's surrounding counties, without paying full cost. While CityTicket has existed in NYC since 2003 for weekend travel,
