I am writing this open letter in response to all the chaos that is going on surrounding the contract negotiations at New Jersey Transit.
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Mr. Kolluri has made some less-than-transparent statements that have been spun purposely to make us look greedy and unrealistic. I’d like to explain our position and, where I can, provide clearer information and show a more realistic purpose for what we are asking for.
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The first place I’d like to start is with wages. Mr. Kolluri has stated that we have had an average salary since 2019 of $137,000. If you go to NJ.com (and I invite you to do so as well if you want to check my numbers), which compiles our salary information as reported on our W-2 and go year by year, the figure I come out with is on average Engineers have made between $100,000 and $105,000 a year, with some variation between those numbers due to COVID and staffing from 2019 to 2024. To reach that number of 137K a year, an engineer would have to work 16 hours of Overtime a week, which I can tell you, less than 25% of the scheduled jobs include, and most include 6 or less. The next number Mr. Kolluri has put up is $175,000 a year, and he claimed that was the base salary that he had offered and we said no to. To hit that number, an engineer would have to work 19 hours of Overtime, or if you wanted to argue that he meant at the end of the contract in 2027, it would still represent 15 hours of overtime. A truer number for what was offered is $114,000 today or $119,000 in 2027, whichever metric you’d prefer to use.
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The second statement I’d like to address is that Mr. Kolluri stated, “No engineers are leaving New Jersey Transit". In the Summer of 2024, 4 engineers left NJT for Amtrak. In September of that same year, 9 more left for Amtrak, and then in April of this month, 8 more left for Amtrak, 1 left for a Railroad in Boston, and another left for a Railroad in North Carolina. By my count, that’s 23. This number is significant and is at the heart of the matter. Follow me for a bit longer, and I’ll explain why. To train an Engineer, it takes just short of 2 years, and there is no way to expedite it. Every engineer who leaves creates a vacancy that takes 2 years to fill. Additionally, each Engineer who leaves represents a loss just short of $500,000, if you figure in 2 years of salary, salary for the teachers and mentors, supplies, testing, medical exams, and whatnot. The loss of those 23 engineers means NJT has to spend another 11.5 million to train replacements. And the reality is that training replacements will cost MORE than that. Why? The Locomotive Engineer Training Program (or LETP as we refer to it) typically has a graduation rate of 40 to 50%. So, a class of 20 will only graduate on average 9 or 10 Engineers. And each of those who do not graduate represents a lost investment as well, the value of which depends on how far into the 2-year program they make it before they fail or drop out.
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Now, let's go back to the engineers leaving for Amtrak and other railroads for a second. A source at Amtrak has stated that they are seeking to hire another 50 Engineers in the coming months as quickly as they can manage the students in their training program. Preference is being given to people who have railroad experience, and current Locomotive Engineers are put at the top of the pile. That same source has told me that the top 90 applications on that pile are current New Jersey Transit Engineers. The MBTA (Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority) has also reached a critical point in its Engineer staffing level and is set to begin a MASSIVE hiring push as well, with the same criteria as Amtrak. Why are the Engineers leaving? Simple. Every Engineer who has left has said the same thing: Wages. Amtrak makes right around $20.00 an hour more than NJT Engineers. They operate over the same tracks. They operate out of the same starting location. Moreover, there are times when NJT trains are parked across the same platform as an Amtrak train, and as many of you have likely experienced, NJT trains are often held out of stations so Amtrak can do their station work first. It’s very nearly as simple as handing in your NJT ID, getting an Amtrak ID, and getting a $15.00 an hour raise while you're in training. Then spend a few weeks in their training program, and you're back to doing the same job at $20.00 an hour more than you were getting at NJT. Health Benefits are very similar. You even keep the time you worked at New Jersey Transit to figure out the amount of paid vacation you are given. And what’s more, 90+% of the Engineers that have left so far were all hired during Governor Murphy’s hiring push to “Fix NJT if it kills him.”
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This is the heart of the matter. NJ Transit has turned itself into nothing more than a training ground for other railroads. Mr. Kolluri states that we have to be “Fiscally responsible and not live in a land of puppies and rainbows”. I am telling you that anything less than parity with these other railroads will not only waste Millions of tax-payers’ dollars in training people who will just run out the door to other railroads, but it will cripple our ability to provide our service to you safely and effectively. Many of you will remember the “Summer of Hell” in 2022. With the exodus of engineers that we are on the verge of, you will look back on those as fond memories of times when trains had a hope of running as scheduled.
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In closing, I want to take the time to thank you for reading this. If you wish to support us, there are two things you can do. The first is to call, write, email, or contact on social media any and every elected official in your area and express to them that you wish them to support the BLE in its fight to achieve a fair contract. Express to them that a bad contract will gut NJT and leave it unable to provide the services that you depend on. The second thing you can do to support us is much simpler. On Wednesdays, Engineers wear red as a sign of unity. Join us in wearing red on Wednesdays. It can be a shirt or pants, even just socks or a hat, ANYTHING red to show your solidarity and support. I can promise you, it WILL be noticed.
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