(16 May 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
New Brunswick, New Jersey – 16 May 2025
1. Wide of Todd Vachon checking his phone
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Todd Vachon, director of Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers University and assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations:
"New Jersey Transit train operators went on strike at 12 a.m. on Friday. After reaching, coming to an impasse in collective bargaining with the New Jersey Transit Authority."
3. Wide of Vachon putting on his glasses
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Todd Vachon, director of Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers University and assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations:
"The train operators in New Jersey Transit are looking for pay parity. They want to get the same salary and wages, or equivalent salary and wages, to operators to operate on other train lines, for example Amtrak train operators. And those trains pull in and out of the same stations, right? They’re pulling in and up to the same station stops, letting passengers on and off. But the New Jersey Transit Train operators are making considerably less pay. So they wanna have parity with their peers. Now, on the other side, what you have on the New Jersey Transit side and the government side, is they don’t want to have to increase costs or fares for riders or they don t want to increase taxes in order to pay for those salaries. But the union again returns and says, well, the company has spent a lot of money on new corporate headquarters, they have very high executive salaries. So it’s not a matter of the employees being overpaid, it’s a matter how New Jersey Transit is choosing to use its resources that’s really going to determine whether the fares are going to go up in the end."
5. Med of Vachon checking his phone
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Todd Vachon, director of Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers University and assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations:
"Well, today Friday is a commuter day. But on Fridays, typically a lot of workers will work remotely, if possible. There’s still a lot of hybrid work arrangements since COVID. Over the weekend, it’s going to impact people more that are going on leisure trips in and out of the city. But I think Monday will be the real true test of a true commuting day, a day when they have the full contingent of people expecting to get on a train and go into New York City and go into Manhattan to go to work Monday morning. I think it’s going to be much more significant impact."
7. Med of Vachon checking his phone
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Todd Vachon, director of Labor Education Action Research Network at Rutgers University and assistant professor of labor studies and employment relations:
"Yeah, this really is his (U.S. President Donald Trump’s) first test, right? To see how is the Trump administration really going to act when workers decide to stand together and fight for higher wages and a better quality of living because a lot of folks voted for him because of his rhetoric around those issues, right? The high inflation. You know, before the election, the rising inequality, etc. Will he stand on the side of workers or will he take the side of the employer? And I think history has showed us that he’s always been on the employer side, but his rhetoric has been very much lately around the populist side."
9. Wide of Vachon standing
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STORYLINE:
AP video by Ted Shaffrey
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