On a typical Tuesday morning, hardhats would have been at work on the Manhattan gateway to the nation’s largest infrastructure undertaking — and never caught in the course of a political combat between President Donald Trump and New York and New Jersey.
“Pouring concrete, digging, excavating, a little of everything,” stated Guido Rivieccio, 49, of Laborers’ Native 731, the most important union that’s engaged on constructing a brand new rail tunnel within the Hudson River.
As an alternative, employees who had been laid off final week from a number of building websites on the $16 billion undertaking generally known as Gateway discovered themselves rallying alongside Gov. Kathy Hochul and union leaders who pressed Trump to revive full funding for work on an important hyperlink alongside the East Coast rail hall that extends between Washington, D.C and Boston.
“I’m hoping they can release the funds and that we can all get back to work,” stated Giulio Petroni, a Native 731 common foreman who final April was among the many first employees on the Manhattan website close to Hudson Yards. “That we can get back to providing for our families, get everybody off the couch and back in their boots.”
Union building employee Guido Rivieccio speaks about funding for the Gateway Tunnel at a undertaking building website on the west aspect of Manhattan, Feb. 17, 2026. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
The tunnel is being constructed to interchange one which carries greater than 200,000 vacationers day by day, and which is greater than a century outdated and vulnerable to breakdowns. However work on the centerpiece to a collection of rail enhancements in New York and New Jersey has been frozen since Feb. 6, with Hochul charging that employees — a lot of whom backed Trump — at the moment are political pawns.
“These people supported you,” Hochul stated. “How can you throw them out of their jobs, how can you tell them to go home?”
Gary LaBarbera, president of the Constructing and Development Trades Council of Larger New York, acknowledged that Trump’s “America First” pledge linked with many employees.
“He said, ‘America first, we’re going to put America first,’” LaBarbera stated. “You know how you put America first? You build a strong middle class, because don’t ever forget it: We’re the ones that built this country.”
A federal decide final Friday launched $30 million to the Gateway Improvement Fee and the federal authorities on Tuesday doled out one other $77 million towards the $200 million owed to the undertaking by the Trump administration.
“DOT is following the court order,” stated a spokesperson for the U.S. Division of Transportation.
The lawsuit filed final week by New York and New Jersey got here on the heels of the Gateway Improvement Fee suing the federal authorities for an alleged breach of contract that led to 1,000 employees dropping their jobs.
Giulio Petroni speaks about funding for the Gateway Tunnel at a undertaking building website on the west aspect of Manhattan, Feb. 17, 2026. Credit score: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“This isn’t a Republican tunnel or a Democratic tunnel, right?” LaBarbera stated. “This should not be a political tug of war.”
“We’re not red, we’re not blue,” added Petroni. “We’re boot brown over here, that’s what we are.”
Work at websites in New Jersey, Manhattan and beneath the Hudson River stays stalled and Hochul stated it won’t resume with out the federal authorities absolutely popping out of arrears on the undertaking.
“This is not out of the goodness of their hearts that we’re seeing money come right now, I want to be clear about that,” Hochul stated. “They’re doing this because they were ordered by a judge.”
A high official from the Gateway Improvement Fee, the general public authority created in 2019 to hold out the rail enhancements, stated the fallout comes with heavy penalties. James Starace, Gateway’s chief of program supply, stated the a number of elements of the undertaking must rebuild what was misplaced by the pause on the undertaking, together with expert employees who’ve now left to work elsewhere.
“We had good momentum on this program, with active construction on both sides of the river,” Starace stated. “We lost that momentum and that goes with the institutional knowledge that we had from the men and women of labor that were on these projects that are gone now.”
Petroni, the Native 731 common foreman, stated some employees are nonetheless coming to the location a couple of days every week to make sure its security. However he informed THE CITY that the longer the shutdown goes, the extra laborers will search for different employment, doubtlessly impacting the work additional.
“I was always told, good workers don’t stay home for long,” he stated. “They’ll find another opportunity, they’ll find another job and the hard part is getting back those good guys.”
Associated
