Payroll data exposes six-figure salaries behind transit strike grinding NYC travel to a halt

By Fox News · Fox News

Long Island Rail Road workers walked off the job on Monday after rejecting the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s latest wage offer, snarling travel for hundreds of thousands of weekday commuters even as payroll data shows the striking employees already earn six-figure pay. LIRR employees had am average income of $121,646 plus an average of $25,957 in overtime pay as of 2024, according to data provided by the railroad operator. While the typical LIRR employee makes about $150,000 a year, the median household on Long Island, which often contains multiple workers, earned just $131,000 in 2023, per the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The rail employees are striking because they feel the raise offered to them by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is not enough to compensate for the rising cost of living in the New York metropolitan area. In addition to negatively impacting the travel plans of the estimated more than a quarter million people who ride the LIRR every day, the New York State Comptroller estimates that the strike will cost the region an average of $61 million per day. SCATHING REPORT CLAIMS NATION'S OLDEST LABOR UNION 'BETRAYED' MAGA MEMBERS THROUGH 'SHOCKING' SPENDING "To every LIRR passenger whose trip is disrupted, know that the MTA left us no choice but to strike," Gil Lang, General Chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen’s LIRR General Committee, said of the strike. "We don’t want to be on the picket line. But after three years without raises, we cannot make any more compromises to cover for the MTA’s mismanagement." The MTA, which manages the LIRR, offered the five unions representing the striking workers a raise of 9.5% over three years, an agreement that has already been approved by other transit unions, Newsday reported . To sweeten the deal, the MTA offered an additional 4.5% after the fourth year, provided the rail operators agree to productivity increases. UNION RACKED UP MASSIVE TAB ON SWANK DC HOTEL STAY…