Kathy Hochul & MTA brass better not buckle to LIRR union thugs’ strike threat

Five Long Island Rail Road unions are threatening to screw New Yorkers with a crippling strike — possibly as soon as Thursday.

Their obscene demands include 16% wage hikes over three years — 6.5 percentage points more than other LIRR unions accepted — and no work-rule “givebacks,” meaning no changes to rules written in some cases to cover 19th-century technology, let alone adjusting for the 21st century.

If the MTA doesn’t buckle, the unions could shut down the whole railroad.

Fewer than 3,500 railroad workers would blithely strand 350,000 commuters — out of pure greed.

That would be a major pain for those commuters and their employers; fill-in bus service could only allow a small fraction to still take transit, and driving would be nightmarish.

But Gov. Kathy Hochul and MTA brass better not cave to these extortionists, strike or not. Or riders and taxpayers will just keep suffering, with ever-higher fares and ever-worse service.

That’s what happened when then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo buckled amid the unions’ threats 11 years ago, leaving absurd work rules (and high pay) in place.

Union officials say they’re just looking to ensure that workers’ pay keeps up with inflation and industry salaries elsewhere in the nation.

But, as the MTA notes, existing contracts already mandate outrageous pay and work rules that drive costs through the roof, with New York taxpayers left on the hook.

LIRR engineers average $49.92 an hour, per MTA figures — 7% higher than the industry norm.

Yearly salaries average $160,000, though some make as much as $350,000, dwarfing average riders’ pay.

And workers enjoy the best health and retirement benefits in the industry.

On top of all that, their contracts include insanely generous — and costly — work rules. To cite two:

• Engineers get one extra day’s pay for running a passenger train and one in the yard, then another full-day bonus for operating a diesel and an electric train in the same day: three days’ pay for just one actually worked.
• Managers can’t schedule workers for night jobs unless they also work during morning peak hours.

“We have to stand of up for the riders,” MTA boss Janno Lieber rightly fumed Tuesday. “A lot of folks [are] a little fed up hearing about these kind of abusive work rules that every other railroad in the United States seems to have gotten rid of, except for the Long Island Rail Road.”

And the agency is actually willing to do extra pay raises in exchange for some sanity on work rules — but the unions won’t hear of it.

They won’t even agree to binding arbitration — a sure sign they know they’re being unreasonable.

No, they want it all: Far higher hikes than most other public-sector unions (at the LIRR, MTA and elsewhere), plus no work-rule concessions at all.

Should the MTA give in (which it would have to, if Hochul so orders behind the scenes), the upshot would be disastrous — punching a $350 million hole in LIRR finances and (understandably) prompting other unions to demand: Us too!

In a word, utter chaos.

The unions may think Hochul, seeking reelection next year and so reluctant to upset Long Island voters, will feel she must make surrender as the unions hold commuters hostage.

But so far the gov is showing plenty of spine here — and hooray for her.

In any sane world, Hochul would insist on work-rule fixes without any bump beyond the raises already offered.

New Yorkers should back her against the unions’ naked greed and morally obscene hostage-taking.

Let ’em strike, then wait them out, gov: It’ll be a huge long-term win for Long Island and the whole state.