Metro-North union boss asking members to back rail strike over contract disputes

The head of Metro-North’s biggest union says he will ask his members to take the rare step of authorizing a strike to protest a series of contractual disputes with the commuter rail, The Journal News/lohud has learned.

James Fahey, the director of the executive board of the Association of Commuter Rail Employees (ACRE), says the call for a strike vote of the union’s 2,400 members was prompted by the railroad’s repeated violations of agreements negotiated with the union.

“In the next few days, we will ask our members to authorize a legalized strike, citing major contractual and safety issues,” Fahey said. “I want to apologize to the riding public in advance.”

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If approved, such a move could thrust into chaos a railroad responsible for moving some 280,000 commuters every weekday. The bulk of ACRE’s membership are conductors and engineers essential to the commuter rail’s day-to-day operations.

Metro-North officials said threatening a strike is counter-productive.

"We do not negotiate in the press," said Metro-North spokesman Aaron Donovan. "We are continuing to have very productive talks with ACRE and expect to resolve any outstanding issues. However, to threaten hundreds of thousands of Metro-North customers with an unlawful strike is completely irresponsible."

Heading the list of ACRE grievances are lengthy delays in the processing of disability pensions, which has forced members who’ve been medically disqualified from working to lose insurance coverage for themselves and family members, Fahey said.

As a result, Fahey says the union has enlisted doctors and dentists to provide members with free health care.

“Without these doctors trying to help they wouldn’t have anything at all,” Fahey said. “It’s a disgrace…It shouldn’t take two years to determine if someone is disabled.”

Relations between the two sides have been strained in recent months. In May, the union sent Metro-North a three-page list of eight grievances the union said “substantially damaged the working relationship” between ACRE and Metro-North.

Fahey said if the membership votes to back the measure, lawyers would first need to agree whether it was over “a major issue.”

In the interest of avoiding strikes, the federal Railway Labor Act generally calls for mandatory arbitration of worker disputes considered to be minor.

The union continues to work under a contract signed in 2015 that came up for renewal nine months ago. There have been no substantive discussions toward a new one, Fahey said.

“They’re violating the contract left and right,” Fahey said.

The May letter cited the firing of a Metro-North engineer over an issue centered on the use of security cameras aboard Metro-North trains. The letter does not name the engineer or specify why he was fired.

Also at issue is what Fahey says are recent efforts by Metro-North to hire outside applicants as locomotive engineers instead of giving preference to current employees working in other jobs on the commuter rail, a longstanding practice.

“Despite the clear and unambiguous language there have been numerous times when the Carrier has only accepted applications from external applicants,” Fahey wrote in the May letter.

Fahey said the union plans to file a $100 million class-action lawsuit contesting the delays in processing disability pension applications.

“Coverage has been taken away without notification, leaving families in dire straits through no fault of their own,” Fahey wrote in the May letter. “The MTA’s complete and total failure to have the proper infrastructure in place to process the applications in a timely manner is causing emotional and financial hardship for employees who have given the better part of their lives to the Carrier.”