The effects of thefirst Long Island Rail Road strike in over three decadesreverberated throughout the region on Monday as New Yorkers struggled to get between the five boroughs and Long Island while the nation’s busiest commuter rail is out of commission.

At New York’s Penn Station, a hub normally bustling with LIRR riders on any given weekday, one of the main concourses was noticeably less crowded than a typical Monday morning.MTAcustomer service agents, doning orange vests, stood in clusters throughout the mezzanine to help riders looking to get to Nassau or Suffolk Counties — including by handing out informational pamphlets on the replacement shuttle bus service.

One commuter who sought their help, who gave her name as Jenny, said she did not know about the strike until MTA workers informed her. She told amNewYork that she was planning to take the LIRR to Mineola for work, as she does every Monday morning, but would now have to take the subway to either a shuttle bus or Nassau Inter-County Express (NICE) bus instead.

Jenny said she was “a little upset, but you know, things just happen.”Gov. Kathy Hochul has advised those who normally rely upon the LIRR to commute to and from work to instead work remotely until the strike ends.Commuters board NICE bus in Great Neck in Nassau County, as an alternative to taking the Long Island Rial Road, while its workers aree on strike. Monday, May 18, 2026.Photo Credit: (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.comAnother commuter,Emina Poricanin, an attorney whose firm represents employers in labor disputes, said she would have to find an alternate way to get to federal court in Central Islip. She said that she should be able afford getting there by Uber or Lyft, but that not everyone can swing such an expense.CloseGet amNY in your inbox!News, events, culture and more — delivered to you.Thank you for subscribing!“I have my own firm, I do okay. So, whatever the gouged prices are for Uber and Lyft, I could pay them,” she said. “But it’s the hard-working people who will be affected.”On Long Island, commuters were caught in heavy traffic going toward the city on Monday morning as LIRR stations stood empty.In the North Shore Nassau County town of Manhasset, “For Five Coffee Roasters” employee Jay Maldonado said business was down roughly 30% and that a quarter of workers had to take time off or cut hours due to having to take longer commutes without the rail road. He said he had to take a $50 Uber from the Bronx to get to work, but the employer fortunately reinbursed him and other staff.“This is horrible,” he said. “The employer did everything they can to support us by reimbursing staff’s Uber cost. I don’t really have an opinion on the strike, but I really hope it can resolve soon.”LIRR strike sees continued pickets in ManhattanAt the same time, workers from the five striking unions — the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the Transportation Communications Union (TCU) — protested on the picket line just outside of the Penn Station entrance on Seventh Avenue.The picketing workers marched in a circle, chanting slogans including “what do we want, a contract, when do we want it, now” and “when we fight, we win.”Workers from the five Long Island Rail Road unions on strike over demands for increased pay on the picket line outside of New York Penn Station. Monday, May 18, 2026.Photo by Ethan Stark-MillerThe unions, representing around half of the LIRR workforce at 3,500 members, pulled their workers off the job early Saturday morning after they were unable to agree on a new contract with MTA leadership.Negotiations between the two sides resumed at the MTA’s Lower Manhattan headquarters early Monday morning, even as they have beenpublicly trading barbsthroughout the strike so far.The central disagreement is over the size of pay raises the unions are seeking for this year, the last of a four-year contract. Union leaders at first sought a 6.5% recurring increase for 2026 and beyond, then brought their ask down to 5%, and said it had dropped to between 4% and 5% by the end of last week.They say the increase is necessary to keep up with soaring costs driven by inflation.Hochul and MTA leaders, on the other hand, contend the agency cannot afford to give the unions a raise at that level because it wouldset a bargaining patternthat the MTA’s largest union, TWU Local 100, would use to request its own pay bumps.Instead, the MTA pitched between 3% and 4% raises, or a 3% raise with a lump-sum payout that would take the 2026 raise to 4.5%, but only for that year.Traffic on the Long Island Expressway into the city amid the Long Island Rail Road strike. Monday, May 18, 2026.Photo Credit: (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.comThey say that having to pay for those increases could lead to sizable fare hikes or service cuts to make up for the expense.MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said in a Monday morninginterview on NY1that LIRR employees are some of the highest-paid rail workers in the country.“These are the best-paid workers,” Lieber said. “They have great benefits, especially they have rich pensions, which folks in the real world, the private sector, rarely get. We don’t want to give them more than the other MTA unions have already agreed to.”With reporting by Miao Li.

Gov. Kathy Hochul has advised those who normally rely upon the LIRR to commute to and from work to instead work remotely until the strike ends.Commuters board NICE bus in Great Neck in Nassau County, as an alternative to taking the Long Island Rial Road, while its workers aree on strike. Monday, May 18, 2026.Photo Credit: (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.comAnother commuter,Emina Poricanin, an attorney whose firm represents employers in labor disputes, said she would have to find an alternate way to get to federal court in Central Islip. She said that she should be able afford getting there by Uber or Lyft, but that not everyone can swing such an expense.CloseGet amNY in your inbox!News, events, culture and more — delivered to you.Thank you for subscribing!“I have my own firm, I do okay. So, whatever the gouged prices are for Uber and Lyft, I could pay them,” she said. “But it’s the hard-working people who will be affected.”On Long Island, commuters were caught in heavy traffic going toward the city on Monday morning as LIRR stations stood empty.In the North Shore Nassau County town of Manhasset, “For Five Coffee Roasters” employee Jay Maldonado said business was down roughly 30% and that a quarter of workers had to take time off or cut hours due to having to take longer commutes without the rail road. He said he had to take a $50 Uber from the Bronx to get to work, but the employer fortunately reinbursed him and other staff.“This is horrible,” he said. “The employer did everything they can to support us by reimbursing staff’s Uber cost. I don’t really have an opinion on the strike, but I really hope it can resolve soon.”LIRR strike sees continued pickets in ManhattanAt the same time, workers from the five striking unions — the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the Transportation Communications Union (TCU) — protested on the picket line just outside of the Penn Station entrance on Seventh Avenue.The picketing workers marched in a circle, chanting slogans including “what do we want, a contract, when do we want it, now” and “when we fight, we win.”Workers from the five Long Island Rail Road unions on strike over demands for increased pay on the picket line outside of New York Penn Station. Monday, May 18, 2026.Photo by Ethan Stark-MillerThe unions, representing around half of the LIRR workforce at 3,500 members, pulled their workers off the job early Saturday morning after they were unable to agree on a new contract with MTA leadership.Negotiations between the two sides resumed at the MTA’s Lower Manhattan headquarters early Monday morning, even as they have beenpublicly trading barbsthroughout the strike so far.The central disagreement is over the size of pay raises the unions are seeking for this year, the last of a four-year contract. Union leaders at first sought a 6.5% recurring increase for 2026 and beyond, then brought their ask down to 5%, and said it had dropped to between 4% and 5% by the end of last week.They say the increase is necessary to keep up with soaring costs driven by inflation.Hochul and MTA leaders, on the other hand, contend the agency cannot afford to give the unions a raise at that level because it wouldset a bargaining patternthat the MTA’s largest union, TWU Local 100, would use to request its own pay bumps.Instead, the MTA pitched between 3% and 4% raises, or a 3% raise with a lump-sum payout that would take the 2026 raise to 4.5%, but only for that year.Traffic on the Long Island Expressway into the city amid the Long Island Rail Road strike. Monday, May 18, 2026.Photo Credit: (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.comThey say that having to pay for those increases could lead to sizable fare hikes or service cuts to make up for the expense.MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said in a Monday morninginterview on NY1that LIRR employees are some of the highest-paid rail workers in the country.“These are the best-paid workers,” Lieber said. “They have great benefits, especially they have rich pensions, which folks in the real world, the private sector, rarely get. We don’t want to give them more than the other MTA unions have already agreed to.”With reporting by Miao Li.

Another commuter,Emina Poricanin, an attorney whose firm represents employers in labor disputes, said she would have to find an alternate way to get to federal court in Central Islip. She said that she should be able afford getting there by Uber or Lyft, but that not everyone can swing such an expense.

“I have my own firm, I do okay. So, whatever the gouged prices are for Uber and Lyft, I could pay them,” she said. “But it’s the hard-working people who will be affected.”

On Long Island, commuters were caught in heavy traffic going toward the city on Monday morning as LIRR stations stood empty.In the North Shore Nassau County town of Manhasset, “For Five Coffee Roasters” employee Jay Maldonado said business was down roughly 30% and that a quarter of workers had to take time off or cut hours due to having to take longer commutes without the rail road. He said he had to take a $50 Uber from the Bronx to get to work, but the employer fortunately reinbursed him and other staff.“This is horrible,” he said. “The employer did everything they can to support us by reimbursing staff’s Uber cost. I don’t really have an opinion on the strike, but I really hope it can resolve soon.”LIRR strike sees continued pickets in ManhattanAt the same time, workers from the five striking unions — the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen (BRS), the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and the Transportation Communications Union (TCU) — protested on the picket line just outside of the Penn Station entrance on Seventh Avenue.The picketing workers marched in a circle, chanting slogans including “what do we want, a contract, when do we want it, now” and “when we fight, we win.”Workers from the five Long Island Rail Road unions on strike over demands for increased pay on the picket line outside of New York Penn Station. Monday, May 18, 2026.Photo by Ethan Stark-MillerThe unions, representing around half of the LIRR workforce at 3,500 members, pulled their workers off the job early Saturday morning after they were unable to agree on a new contract with MTA leadership.Negotiations between the two sides resumed at the MTA’s Lower Manhattan headquarters early Monday morning, even as they have beenpublicly trading barbsthroughout the strike so far.The central disagreement is over the size of pay raises the unions are seeking for this year, the last of a four-year contract. Union leaders at first sought a 6.5% recurring increase for 2026 and beyond, then brought their ask down to 5%, and said it had dropped to between 4% and 5% by the end of last week.They say the increase is necessary to keep up with soaring costs driven by inflation.Hochul and MTA leaders, on the other hand, contend the agency cannot afford to give the unions a raise at that level because it wouldset a bargaining patternthat the MTA’s largest union, TWU Local 100, would use to request its own pay bumps.Instead, the MTA pitched between 3% and 4% raises, or a 3% raise with a lump-sum payout that would take the 2026 raise to 4.5%, but only for that year.Traffic on the Long Island Expressway into the city amid the Long Island Rail Road strike. Monday, May 18, 2026.Photo Credit: (c) Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.comThey say that having to pay for those increases could lead to sizable fare hikes or service cuts to make up for the expense.MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said in a Monday morninginterview on NY1that LIRR employees are some of the highest-paid rail workers in the country.“These are the best-paid workers,” Lieber said. “They have great benefits, especially they have rich pensions, which folks in the real world, the private sector, rarely get. We don’t want to give them more than the other MTA unions have already agreed to.”With reporting by Miao Li.

In the North Shore Nassau County town of Manhasset, “For Five Coffee Roasters” employee Jay Maldonado said business was down roughly 30% and that a quarter of workers had to take time off or cut hours due to having to take longer commutes without the rail road. He said he had to take a $50 Uber from the Bronx to get to work, but the employer fortunately reinbursed him and other staff.

“This is horrible,” he said. “The employer did everything they can to support us by reimbursing staff’s Uber cost. I don’t really have an opinion on the strike, but I really hope it can resolve soon.”

Source: LI Press