For months, New Jersey’s capitalists, politicians, and press have been freaking out that the state’s transit workers might go on strike. That strike is now less than 24 hours away. NJ Transit engineers have warned that they will walk off the job at 12:01 a.m. on Friday, May 16, if their demands for wage increases and time off go unmet.

NJ Transit engineers, organized in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), transport 350,000 commuters daily. In April, 87 percent of the roughly 450 union members rejected a tentative contract, citing a proposed salary increase of less than 3 percent a year — below industry standards and the federal rate of inflation.

NJ Transit has attempted to turn commuters against the workers who keep the state running. The NJ Transit app contains a statement urging commuters to “plan ahead,” blaming any future disruptions on the union. This statement has also been posted at train stations statewide. Additionally, NJ Transit claims that if it has to pay its workers more, it will have no choice but to increase transit fares, despite having raised them by 15 percent last year.

NJ Transit’s CEO does not mention that it found over $500 million to spend on its corporate headquarters. Furthermore, New Jersey politicians, who often claim they cannot improve the state’s transit system, ignore that there would be sufficient funds for NJ Transit improvements if they ceased spending our taxes on the genocide in Gaza, bloated military budgets, and policing.

Part of why the capitalists and their representatives are freaking out so much is that even one day of an NJ Transit strike would demonstrate that nothing runs without workers. Logistics workers have the power to halt the normal flow of capitalism, and NJ Transit workers could be particularly disruptive, since many commuters are office workers on Wall Street. One labor action could threaten the functioning of finance capital. If this strike takes place, these workers and their allies would clearly see the power of their labor.

The state will likely try to isolate these engineers as they use their labor power to fight for better pay. This week, both the union leadership and the NJ Transit CEO have been in Washington, DC, where the federal government is trying to broker a deal. The BLET falls under the Railway Labor Act, the same anti-worker legislation that the Biden administration used to suppress a rail strike in 2022. Trump could very well use the same legislation against this strike.

With the engineers facing such challenges, workers from other sectors, community members fighting injustice and capitalist greed, and social movements thinking about how to disrupt business as usual should be prepared to support the BLET if this strike occurs.