SEPTA rail workers strike as talks break down
Last updated: Friday, June 13, 2014, 7:48 PM Posted: Friday, June 13, 2014, 7:07 PM
Federal mediators met late Friday with SEPTA officials and railroad union leaders in a final effort to prevent the Philadelphia region's first commuter rail strike in 31 years.
Barring a last-minute breakthrough in talks, locomotive engineers and railroad electrical workers were poised to walk out at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
A strike would halt service on 13 Regional Rail lines that provide 60,000 passengers with 126,000 rides on a typical weekday.
Service on SEPTA's buses, subways, trolleys, and Norristown High-Speed Line - which carry about 85 percent of SEPTA's riders - would not be affected.
On behalf of Gov. Corbett, Pennsylvania Transportation Secretary Barry Schoch called both sides Friday to seek a two-week delay in any work stoppage and to urge them to reach a settlement.
A top-level official from the National Mediation Board met with representatives of SEPTA and the unions about 7:45 p.m. in the Center City law offices where the two sides had met with another NMB mediator earlier in the day.
In the event of a strike, Corbett was prepared to ask President Obama to quickly appoint a presidential emergency board to mediate the dispute. Under federal railroad law, the creation of such a board would compel the workers to return to the job for 240 days.
'The governor's primary concern is for the riders of Southeastern Pennsylvania to have the ability to get to their jobs or shopping or wherever they need to go,' Corbett's press secretary, Jay Pagni, said Friday. 'Both parties should keep the riders foremost in their consideration.'
It remained unclear how quickly a board could be appointed and how long the rail workers might remain off the job.
Mayor Nutter said his office was monitoring the talks and hoping for the best.
'We hope SEPTA management and the unions can work out their differences and avoid a shutdown,' Nutter spokesman Mark McDonald said Friday.
A strike 'will be very, very inconvenient for people who rely on Regional Rail,' said Tony DeSantis, president of the Delaware Valley Association of Rail Passengers. 'Particularly in places like Bucks County, there is no good alternative.'
'But it may not last very long. . . . It really depends on who is willing to accept a long strike to get what they want.'
The members of the two rail unions have been working for years without new contracts - the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers since 2009 and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen since 2010.
The 220 engineers and 210 electrical workers announced their plans to strike following SEPTA's decision to impose management's terms to settle the long-running labor dispute.
SEPTA alerted union officials Monday that it would implement previously offered pay raises, effective Sunday.
The raises are based on the pattern established by the contract settlement in 2009 with SEPTA bus drivers and subway operators represented by Transport Workers Union Local 234.
Those increases would give electrical workers a raise of 11.5 percent Sunday, and the engineers would get a 5 percent raise Sunday and an additional 3.5 percent raise July 6, SEPTA said.
Wages for electrical workers would increase by about $3 to $29.50 an hour, on average. Electrical workers on average earn $55,120 a year, not counting overtime pay.
The top wage rate for engineers would increase by $2.64 per hour, to about $32.50 an hour. Engineers, who typically work six-day weeks, now earn an average of $95,290 a year, SEPTA said.
The railroad workers have two major objections to the SEPTA offer: They want the raises to be retroactive to the expiration of their last contracts, and they want an additional 3 percent raise, which they say represents the value of a pension benefit increase received by the Transit Workers Union in 2009.
The railroad workers are in a different pension plan from the TWU.
SEPTA general manager Joseph Casey says the pension benefit increase of $4 million a year for the TWU is offset by a higher contribution now paid by the workers.
SEPTA maintains there is no cash value from the pension benefit increase.
Talks between SEPTA and the rail workers have been fruitless for years. Federal railroad law requires a lengthy negotiation and mediation process before either side in a passenger rail dispute can resort to 'self-help' - a strike or a management lockout.
That period expires at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
Both the BLET and IBEW Local 744 offered to submit the current labor dispute to binding arbitration.
SEPTA declined arbitration, saying it believed it could get better terms through negotiation.
Although the current dispute involves only SEPTA's Regional Rail service, the contracts for bus drivers, subway operators, mechanics, and cashiers expired earlier this year.
A strike by those workers is also possible on short notice, though no strike-authorization vote has yet been taken.
TWU Local 234 president Willie Brown said this week that his union, which represents about half of SEPTA's 10,000 employees, will not strike now.
A strike by TWU members at the same time as the rail workers would halt SEPTA's entire transportation system. That has never occurred in SEPTA's 50-year history, and that has been held by TWU leaders as the ultimate threat against SEPTA.
The last Regional Rail strike was in 1983, and that lasted 108 days.
pnussbaum@phillynews.com
215-854-4587 @nussbaumpaul
Inquirer staff writer Claudia Vargas contributed to this article.
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