With Long Island Rail Road workers threatening a strike that could strand hundreds of thousands of commuters, the Empire Center is publishing copies of the labor contracts at the heart of the dispute.

The six contracts involving five unions cover almost half of the LIRR’s 7,000 unionized employees. The unions in question are considering a work stoppage as soon as Sept. 18, which could result in a shutdown of service for 300,000 daily commuters in the New York City area.

The Empire Center obtained the contracts under a Freedom of Information Law request submitted in February to the LIRR’s parent agency, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 

The center regularly seeks copies of all available public employee contracts for publication at SeeThroughNY.net, its government transparency website. Today, the center updated its database to include the latest versions of the bargaining agreements at the center of the LIRR standoff:

Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen

Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen (Local 56)

Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen (Local 241)

International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers

International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 

Transportation Communications Union

MTA officials blame provisions of these agreements for unnecessarily driving up costs for LIRR riders and taxpayers, saying the current contracts mandate “the most costly and inefficient work rules in the entire railroad industry.”

For example, LIRR engineers are entitled to an extra day’s pay if they operate electric and diesel trains on the same shift, or if they operate trains in service and in a rail yard on the same shift. 

According to figures provided by the MTA, the engineers’ current average wage of $49.92 per hour is 7 percent higher than the industry norm. With overtime, LIRR engineers collected an average of more than $160,000 in 2025.

The agency said negotiations have stalled because the unions are demanding 16 percent in pay raises over the next three years, which is 6.5 points more than what other MTA bargaining units previously agreed to.

The Empire Center’s SeeThroughNY.net website regularly documents the labor expenses, including overtime, of all state and local agencies in New York.

Its most recent report on the MTA found that the agency paid a total of $1.36 billion in overtime in 2024, which was 17 percent of its total payroll. Overtime at the LIRR was $207 million, or 21 percent of its payroll.

The Empire Center’s 2019 analysis of overtime at the MTA led to a sweeping investigation of the agency’s overtime policies that same year.

The Empire Center, based in Albany, is an independent, not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank dedicated to promoting policies that can make New York a better place to live, work and raise a family.