Some Long Island employers leaned into remote work, technology to ride out LIRR shutdown impacts

Some Long Island employers, from hospitals to large companies, leaned into technology and remote work policies set in place during COVID to navigate the Long Island Rail Road shutdown, which came to a close late Monday, according to the governor's office. 

Infrastructure such as equipping workers with laptops and the use of web conferencing technology allowed businesses to operate on the third, and ultimately, last day of the Long Island Rail Road union strike, major hospital networks and local business advocates said. The strike had brought service on the nation's busiest commuter rail system to a grinding halt for the first time in 32 years and prolonged commute times for many Long Islanders.

“A lot of employers listened to the message from the governor and the Long Island Rail Road and implemented remote work for employees that can do that,” Stacey I. Sikes, acting president and CEO of the Long Island Association business group said early Monday.

Ahead of the strike, business leaders and economists said a shutdown of the major transportation artery could cost the region an estimated $61 million in lost economic activity daily, according to recent figures from the state comptroller’s office. Still, business owners and other industry observers said operations at many workplaces, particularly those with technological capacities that allowed employees to work remotely, continued normally largely due to contingency planning.

Major employers locally credited flexible work schedules.

Henry Schein, which had over 1,400 employees on Long Island in 2024, said Monday its “flexible work-from-home policies” helped ensure that disruptions to workflow were minimal during the strike.

Anthony Buonaspina, founder and CEO of LI Tech Advisors in Babylon, said a mix of technological solutions like cloud-enabled phone systems and productivity monitoring technology that tracks worker metrics allowed the company to operate without interruption.

“A year before COVID, we set ourselves up for remote access,” he said. “We proactively set ourselves up for things like this, like snowstorms and outages.”

Organizations with employees who work on-site said contingency plans and communication with staff ensured business went on as usual.

NYU Langone Health, next to the Mineola LIRR station, implemented a plan that included emergency lodging and alternative transportation options, James Iorio, director of media relations at NYU Langone Health said in an emailed statement early Monday.

Northwell Health, the state’s largest private employer, activated “comprehensive contingency plans to supplement existing transportation options.” The plan included operating shuttle services and support hubs, Northwell said in a statement.

Stony Brook University and its neighboring hospital Stony Brook Medicine, went into the start of the week with a game plan, said Lawrence Zacarese, chief security officer and vice president for enterprise risk management for the university.

Last week, the school sent out an impact survey to more than 65,000 students, faculty, staff and hospital employees to assess potential impact of a strike on commutes.

Roughly half of the 3,400 survey respondents said they would be impacted or worried they might, Zacarese said. As a result, the university is allowing students who live on campus to stay through Friday when normally they would be required to leave their dorms 24 hours after their last final.

The university had also increased the frequency of its campus shuttle system and suspended parking enforcement of on-campus parking.

Some businesses, though, saw major upticks in customer interest.

After the strike went into effect Saturday, demand for seats aboard the Hampton Jitney shot through the roof, said company president Geoffrey Lynch.

“We’ve added 30% to 40% capacity on our existing schedule” since Saturday, the day the strike began,” said Lynch, head of the Calverton-based business known for ferrying summer travelers between Manhattan and the East End.

Lynch said business this week is up by 50% to 60% compared with the same week last year, an uptick he attributed to the strike. For its North Fork and Westhampton routes, the Jitney is seeing a surge in customers using the bus for commuting purposes, not for leisure, he said.

However, Sikes said that smaller businesses that sell goods directly to customers, particularly those next to train stations, had no means to deal with the loss of sales.

“As soon as the LIRR was shut down, these small businesses lost a customer base,” Sikes said.