Here’s something you don’t hear every day: Genuine concern about the costs the business community in New Jersey is being asked to pay.
Then again, maybe it’s not so surprising when you learn it’s coming from Kris Kolluri, the CEO of New Jersey Transit who has long been known as a fair and able public servant.
Kolluri is in the center of the labor negotiations with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen — negotiations that could lead to a rail strike next week.
Kolluri told BINJE on Wednesday that he won’t make a deal that hurts the riders or the businesses, which already contribute heavily (we’ll say it, more than their “fair share”).
“I can’t ask the fare payers to pay a 34% increase in fares or the businesses to pay a 37% increase in corporate transit fees so this union can have what it wants,” he said. “That is not how it works. That’s crazy.”
Kolluri said asking others to pay more is a nonstarter — not a negotiation tactic.
“I am a fiduciary of the taxpayers,” he said. “I’m management in title only.
“We are not some private-sector employer trying to hide profits. We get our money from three sources: fares, the corporate transit fees and the general fund — that’s it. Ultimately, I work for the taxpayers — so do they.”
To Kolluri, it’s simple: “Either they want a deal or they want to go on strike,” he said.
Deals are possible.
In fact, Kolluri was speaking to BINJE just moments after NJ Transit announced it had reached an agreement with the Amalgamated Transit Union. The ATU, which represents transit and allied workers (the bus drivers, among others), is the largest union for NJ Transit at 5,500 members, or 10 times the number of members of the BLET.
Kolluri said the figure means something.
“This is an important milestone,” he said. “To be able to say that we’ve negotiated a tentative agreement with a 5,500-member union is important because we were able to do it in a fair and fiscally responsible way.
“This is an example of how people can get to a deal. Reasonable people can disagree, but they can eventually get to a deal.”
Kolluri has been vocal in his distaste for the negotiations with the BLET so far — mostly because he doesn’t feel there have been serious talks.
“Nothing that they have put forward in the last 48 hours shows me a sense of seriousness, and it certainly doesn’t send me a signal that they want to get to a deal,” he said. “It shows me that they are hell-bent on a strike.”
Kolluri said NJ Transit met a demand to be paid essentially the same as Long Island Railroad engineers — only to find the BLET is asking for more.
“We understand they need a fair and equitable deal,” he said. “That’s their side of the ledger; we feel we’ve given them one.
“On my side of the ledger, it not only has to be fair, but it has to be affordable to the taxpayer. That’s the metric. There is no other metric by which I measure the talks.”
Kolluri said the union needs to literally and figuratively understand who they are negotiating with.
“Who do you think we are?” he asked, then answered. “We are not a bank. We are not a private corporation that has profits. We are a taxpayer-run entity.”
One that apparently has the backs of the riders who are paying the fares — and the business community that is supplementing them.
