With the first weekday morning commute hours away, negotiators for the Long Island Rail Road and its striking unions worked past 10:30 p.m. Sunday in a last-ditch effort to end a shutdown that has halted North America’s largest commuter railroad. The National Mediation Board, the federal labor agency that governs railroad labor relations, summoned both sides to an afternoon meeting that stretched into the night.
The LIRR, which serves hundreds of thousands of daily riders across a 118-mile stretch from Brooklyn and Queens to the Hamptons, shut down at 12:01 a.m. Saturday after five unions representing about half the railroad’s workforce walked off the job. It was the first LIRR strike since a two-day work stoppage in 1994, and it interrupted weekend travel for sports fans trying to reach Yankees, Mets, and Knicks games at arenas near the railroad’s Manhattan hub.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, appearing alongside MTA Chairman Janno Lieber earlier Sunday, said the state was ready to help negotiations resume. “We all know that the railroad is the lifeblood of Long Island. Without it, life as we know it is simply not possible,” Hochul said. “The bottom line is, no one wins in a strike. Everyone is hurt.” She offered to provide refreshments and urged companies to allow employees to work from home, acknowledging that bus bridges from six Long Island locations—running from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Monday—could not fully replace train service.
Lieber said the MTA was “more than willing to meet them halfway on wages” but warned that the unions’ initial proposals would “blow up the MTA’s budget.”
The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Transportation Communications Union said in a statement that workers “are not asking for special treatment — they are simply fighting to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of living in the New York region after years without a raise.” Contract talks have been under way since 2023. The Trump administration got involved last September after the unions asked for a panel of experts, but a deal never materialized and the unions became legally permitted to strike at midnight Saturday.
Federal law makes it extremely difficult for rail workers to walk out and allows Congress to block a strike, but lawmakers did not intervene as they did with the nation’s freight railroads in 2022. Hochul, a Democrat, blamed the Trump administration for cutting mediation short in September. President Donald Trump, a Republican, shot back on Truth Social, saying he had nothing to do with the strike. “No, Kathy, it’s your fault, and now looking over the facts, you should not have allowed this to happen,” Trump said.
As the midnight deadline approached, the impact was already visible on departure boards listing ghost trains marked “No Passengers.” Hochul warned that workers who remain on strike would lose every dollar they could gain from a new contract after three days.
The MTA has argued that the unions’ wage demands would force large fare increases and are disproportionate to what other unionized workers receive. The unions say substantial raises are justified by inflation and the region’s soaring living costs. Talks were continuing late Sunday, but MTA officials cautioned that even if a deal were reached overnight, the time needed to re-crew and reposition trains might still disrupt Monday’s morning rush.