SEPTA strike update, Day Five - and done?

November 7, 6:43 AMPhiladelphia Public Transportation ExaminerSandy Smith

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Sandy Smith

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Maybe, just maybe, you can unchain your hope.

Late last night, Governor Edward G. Rendell and U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (D-Pa.) announced that SEPTA and Transport Workers Union Local 234 had tentatively reached an agreement in their contract dispute that triggered a union walkout Nov. 3.

The contract is not significantly different in its economic offer from the one SEPTA offered and the union rejected Friday, but it does phase in increases in worker contributions to the employee pension fund more gradually and resolve the dispute over the use of seniority in allocating choice work among maintenance shop employees in a way acceptable to the union.

The wage component of the five-year package consists of a $1,250 signing bonus in the first year, a 2.5 percent raise in the second year, and 3 percent raises in the last three years. Employee contributions to their health care plan remain unchanged over the life of the contract. Worker contributions to the pension plan will gradually rise a total of 1.5 percentage points, from 1 to 2.5 percent, over the contract term, and the maximum pension payment to employees upon retirement will rise 11 percent, from $27,000 to $30,000.

Rendell and Brady said that TWU Local 234's executive council would review the proposal this afternoon, and if they approve it, subway-elevated, trolley, and bus drivers in the city could be back on the job by this evening.

The late-night announcement came after a day of dispiriting news. Two Philadelphia city councilmen, Curtis Jones and Bill Green, had suggested the two sides submit to binding arbitration, an idea TWU President Willie Brown accepted, saying that if SEPTA did not agree, "we'll be in for a long strike." At the news conference announcing the tentative settlement, the balding Gov. Rendell said it was more likely that he would "be combing my hair in a pompadour" than it would have been that SEPTA would agree to arbitration.

The news also capped a day of mounting frustration and anger among the riding public and negotiators. As city streets and highways remained clogged with cars at the evening peak, sporadic rider protests popped up at SEPTA Regional Rail stations, and a Twitter effort to organize a mass protest Sunday afternoon emerged. Rendell had even at one point threatened to withdraw a $6 million pot of money from a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation economic development fund to help SEPTA pay for the contract if no progress was made.

Rendell credited Brady, a union man himself, for pushing hard for a settlement Rendell characterized as "good for both sides." And he gave Brown credit for doing his job on behalf of his members.

Of course, given the repeated raising and dashing of hopes over the course of this strike, the most prudent course of action for the anxious rider is to assume nothing is truly settled until word comes from the TWU this afternoon.

For up-to-the-second information on those SEPTA services that are operating, follow SEPTA on Twitter. This article contains basic information about services that are runnning and those that are idle; for more details about service disruptions, visit the SEPTA Web site.

Taking to the road? Use Pennsylvania's 511 information system to obtain current information on traffic and road conditions in the Philadelphia region.