Posts tagged Mark Wallace
2 big rail unions oppose $85B Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger over safety and cost concerns
December 18, 2025 // The unions’ decision they plan to announce Wednesday will make the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division two of the most prominent critics of the deal to create the nation’s first transcontinental railroad. They join the American Chemistry Council, an assortment of agricultural groups and competing railroad BNSF in raising concerns that this combination would hurt competition. But the deal has picked up the support of the nation’s largest rail union that represents conductors and hundreds of individual shippers as well as an Oval Office endorsement from President Donald Trump.
NJ Transit CEO rails against union as strike looms
May 8, 2025 // The NJ Transit Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen could strike as early as May 16 if the two sides do not reach an accord. They’ve remained at odds over the level of wage hikes, with engineers seeking increases that would bring their average salary to $190,000, while the agency has pushed for a contract that would bring that wage up to $172,000. “If there’s any citizen, private or government, in this environment who’d get a $25,000 pay raise and say, ‘No, no, that’s not good enough,’ does that sound like a group of people who are grounded in reality, or more importantly, on what is actually happening in the world we live in?” Kolluri told the Assembly’s budget committee. In written responses to questions asked through the Office of Legislative Services, NJ Transit warned it could face cost increases as a result of tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, though it said it lacks the information needed to gauge the impact tariffs would have.