As MTA-LIRR talks on hold, finger pointing persists

Steve Ammireti, a board member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen that's representing striking LIRR workers, asked Long Island residents who are scrambling for transportation options to be patient during the work stoppage.

Ammireti said raises offered by the MTA are inadequate when costs for basic goods are soaring.

"We are fighting for a fair contract and we apologize if that falls on them at the end of the day, but that's on Hochul," Ammireti said. "We've been without a raise for going on four years now."

Duane O'Connor, vice general chairman for BLET and an LIRR locomotive engineer, pushed back on MTA CEO Janno Lieber's claims that the unions wanted to strike and that a work stoppage was inevitable.

"That couldn't have been further from the truth," O'Connor told reporters after Blakeman's news conference outside the Long Beach LIRR station. "We wanted a resolution. We want to work. We are working people, we support our families. We want to go to work. They forced us into this."