Mike Davis

@byMikeDavis

NEWARK – Exactly 29 hours and 5 minutes before a potential strike would have shut down New Jersey Transit, the agency struck a deal with its railroad workers union, sparing more than 100,000 commuters from a traffic nightmare.

More than a dozen union leaders could barely keep a straight face as SMART-TD Local 60 General Chairman Steve Burkert read a prepared statement, surrounded by reporters who had mobbed the lobby of the Hilton Penn Station Newark throughout the negotiations.

“You could all smile now,” he said. “We have reached a tentative agreement. Thankfully for the commuters of NJ Transit the crisis is averted. We thank our members for having faith in us in solidarity.

“We're going home to our families,” he said.

With that, the union leaders burst into applause, cheers and fist pumps, hugging each other tight without wasting a second glance on the gawking eyes around them.

The deal won’t be official until it’s ratified by the 4,200 railroad workers represented by the union coalition, but it puts an immediate end to the threat of a strike that would have turned the Garden State into one big bottleneck.

“It will be business as usual on Monday morning,” Gov. Chris Christie said at a press conference at NJ Transit’s headquarters, two blocks away from the Hilton where negotiations had taken place.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Gov. Chris Christie – who cut short a vacation to Florida to finalize negotiations – said he was pleased with the financial terms.

“This is going to give workers and commuters a measure of certainty and stability as we go forward,” Christie said. “From the perspective of the New Jersey taxpayers and farepayers, who I represent, I want to let you know we’ve settled a contract with their interests being placed before any other interests.”

The workers had been negotiating with NJ Transit since July 2011, when the last contract expired. Talks stalled last year and the two sides went before three federal labor panels, including the National Mediation Board.

NJ Transit was seeking an annual 1.4 percent wage increase. The unions proposed an annual 2.9 percent increase and Presidential Emergency Board No. 249 issued a non-binding recommendation for an annual 2.6 percent increase.

MORE: Search NJ Transit salaries and overtime on DataUniverse.com.

But the main sticking point had been a disagreement on health benefit contributions: In their most recent proposal, which was endorsed by federal mediators, the unions were willing to pay up to 2.5 percent of their health insurance premiums.

NJ Transit's last public offer called for contributions of up to 20 percent.

“It’s very important for the members to hear these details from their union representatives first and we’re giving them the opportunity to do that,” Christie said, refusing to provide any insight into the settlement – in addition to any financial information – until the unions presented the deal to their rank-and-file members.

What he did reveal was that the contract will last through the end of 2019 – longer than the federal labor boards’ recommendations — but shorter than the 7½-year deal sought by NJ Transit.

And it won’t come with a fare increase, at least not in the fiscal year 2017 budget. He wouldn’t rule out one in the future, calling periodic increases to cover rising costs “responsible."

“Wages go up, health costs go up for employees, other costs go up and there’s always going to be the need for periodic fare increases,” Christie said. “Where we get into trouble is when we don’t do them over a long period of time. What happens then is we need to have much larger increases to make it up.”

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Christie said he got seriously involved in the negotiations two weeks ago, though his involvement grew over the last week as he vacationed in Florida with his wife, Mary Pat, and daughter, Sarah.

Though he took criticism for leaving the state with the strike hanging over the head of 300,000 daily NJ Transit riders, Christie said he was never really concerned.

“I’m not concerned about optics on this stuff. I’m concerned about results,” Christie said. “I didn’t have any direct contact with the unions because I didn’t have to. What I wanted was to get an agreement with the unions and that’s what we got.

“I knew it was going to take my involvement to do it, but when you’re the ultimate decision-maker – which, on the government side of it, I am — you don’t come in until the very end.”

But he cut the trip short and returned to Newark when it looked like a deal was on the horizon: “The job is the job,” he said.

“I never felt we were all that close to a strike, from a realistic point of view,” Christie said. “I knew the hours got closer but, no matter how hard we try, we can’t stop time.”

​Mike Davis: (732) 643-4223; mdavis@gannettnj.com. Click here to sign up for Mike's weekly "Road Sage" newsletter.