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SEPTA talks
head down to wire
If tomorrow's deadline is
missed, about 100 Phila. routes, serving 400,000 riders, could be
stopped.
By Jere
Downs
Inquirer Staff
Writer
With SEPTA's contract with its largest union of city employees expiring
tomorrow, transit riders are already fretting about a possible strike.
"Why inconvenience the whole city of Philadelphia and cause chaos?"
bank employee Kim Cooper, 44, wanted to know as she waited for a bus at
Broad and Olney Streets. "People are really sick and tired of it. SEPTA
should just negotiate, or it is going to lose riders."
A strike would halt about 100 transit routes inside Philadelphia,
including the subway, Market-Frankford El and subway-surface trolleys.
That could affect about 400,000 people - including 39,000 city school
students - who ride city transit daily, usually making more than one
trip.
Thirteen Regional Rail lines stretching from Center City out to the
Main Line, Trenton and Norristown and elsewhere would still roll.
Still, the impact of a work stoppage would ripple beyond Philadelphia.
Some city residents depend on public transit to commute to the
Pennsylvania and Jersey suburbs, while some suburbanites depend on public
transit to commute into the city.
Health care remains virtually the sole and seemingly immovable issue
between the 4,700-strong Transport Workers Union Local 234 and SEPTA
management as talks hurtle toward a deadline of 12:01 a.m. tomorrow.
"We feel every second of the clock go by," said SEPTA spokesman Richard
Maloney.
Negotiations at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza hotel in Center City
continued into the early morning.
"They're moving forward," Maloney said shortly after 10 p.m. "I would
characterize them as positive and professional - their nose is to the
grindstone... . I'm optimistic that we can come to a conclusion so we
won't have a service disruption."
But, he added, "The history of these talks is that they go into the
last day, and that's exactly what's happening."
Jean Alexander, union president, had a mixed assessment: "I can't tell
you that SEPTA's willing to meet us halfway, but we're still working."
For the first time, SEPTA wants veteran bus drivers, cashiers and
mechanics to regularly pay for health care - estimated between $50 and
$100 a week. New employees now pay part of health costs for their first
three years on the job.
SEPTA also wants to end treasured lifetime prescription coverage for
retirees. As for pay raises, SEPTA proposes none for the first two years
of a four-year contract, followed by a 2 percent increase for each of the
remaining years.
Workers flatly refuse to support those concessions.
"SEPTA Beware. Keep hands off our benefits," is the slogan on buttons
worn by SEPTA drivers, cashiers and mechanics.
SEPTA - facing up to a $70 million deficit in its $875 million fiscal
2005 budget - counters that it has little choice.The SEPTA negotiations,
which began Feb. 12, come at time when the labor movement sees itself as
the leader in the battle to keep company-provided health benefits for
American workers.
What distinguishes this SEPTA job action from others is the focus at
the bargaining table, said Anthony Wigglesworth, executive director of
Philadelphia Area Labor-Management Committee and a longtime observer of
Philadelphia labor trends.
"What you see is what you get," Wigglesworth said. "The issue is so
pervasive - it's so stark, so black and white."
In California, 60,000 grocery store workers in three major chains
walked off the job for nearly five months, and health benefits were one of
the chief issues. While everyone claimed victory when employees returned
to stores this month, the willingness of workers and management to endure
considerable financial hardship demonstrates how important the issue
is.
Some SEPTA riders envy transit workers' middle-class wages (Local 234
workers average $47,000 annually) and excellent health benefits.
Claudia Gale used to be there, but has slipped a rung or two down the
economic ladder since her layoff from a bank a few years ago.
"I went from making $55,000 a year to $15,000 a year," said Gale, 46,
as she prepared to take the subway to Center City. She now works in a
bank, but for considerably lower wages and fewer benefits from a temporary
clerical agency. "I understand what they [Local 234 workers] are fighting
for."
Many of SEPTA's daily riders have lived through one of the 10 work
stoppages since 1975. The last, in 1998, went 40 days.
"We have done it before. The city ain't going to come to a complete
stop," Oak Lane resident Rasheen Woods, 22, said as he boarded a Route 55
bus to Abington. "Spring is in the air, and I can walk."
But that may not be an option for city students who depend on SEPTA to
get to class.
Yesterday, Paul Vallas, Philadelphia school district chief executive
officer, urged SEPTA workers to continue negotiating. With two critical
standardized tests scheduled to be given between March 22 and April 20,
Vallas said he was concerned that a strike would keep the district from
meeting the 95 percent attendance requirement for one of the tests, the
state-mandated Pennsylvania System of School Assessment. "It would be a
shame if anything interfered with our test preparation next week and with
our tests the following week," he said.
"We feel his pain," SEPTA spokesman Maloney said yesterday in response
to Vallas' comments.
While some are stressed about getting to school, others wondered how
they would get to work.
If the Route 22 bus does not roll out of Olney tomorrow for Willow
Grove Park Mall, Chuck Ellison said he will have no way to link to the
Breeze, a SEPTA suburban shuttle that takes him to United Parcel Service
in Horsham.
"SEPTA and the union have half this city terrified," said Ellison,
48.
At 52, Ann Johnson of West Philadelphia is contemplating
getting on two wheels.
"I have to learn how to ride a bike again," said Johnson, who
would need a bike ride to get to a Regional Rail station for the trip to
Glenside, where she helps care for the elderly and homebound.
Such riders will find help at select city bike shops. Air for
bike tires, a safety once-over and bike maps are available for free at
bike shops through a "Bike the Strike" drive by the Bicycle Coalition of
Greater Philadelphia.
If they want to avoid crowded Regional Rail trains, Trenton-bound city
riders might try catching a $1.15 PATCO train in Center City to Camden.
From there, they can ride to Trenton on the new River Line, which is
opening for service this weekend. For more information about the River
Line, call 1-800-626-7433 or go to www.riverline.com.
While a strike may loom, it is ironic that a new edition of a regional
transit map will be available for the first time tomorrow for sale and for
inspection at the main branch of the Free Library. The $4.95 map
illustrates service and connections on PATCO, NJ Transit, Amtrak, SEPTA's
Regional Rail system and all other SEPTA routes and is available at www.phillymap.com or by calling
215-887-5986.
"I am sorry if there is a strike, but this is good timing," said
cartographer Steve Spindler. "People can find their transit route and see
how Regional Rail lines might replace it."
Contact staff writer Jere Downs at 610-313-8128 or
[EMAIL PROTECTED]. Inquirer
staff writers Jane Von Bergen, Bonnie L. Cook, Leslie A. Pappas and
Christine Schiavo contributed to this article. | 