(The following article by Larry King was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on August 21.)
PHILADELPHIA — A yearlong stalemate between SEPTA and its Regional Rail engineers could end next week if union members approve a tentative five-year contract.
Ballots from 195 members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET) will be tallied Monday night.
The engineers, working without an agreement since July 2005, would receive raises totaling 12 percent over the life of the contract. The contract is retroactive to last year.
“We believe it will be ratified,” said Richard Dixon, general chairman of the union. “We weren’t going to take an agreement to our membership that we felt they would not support.”
The deal would increase the engineers’ top hourly rate, currently $26.74, to $30.10 in 2010. While that exceeds what other SEPTA operators make, “it would still be the lowest hourly wage rate at any passenger commuter railroad in the country,” Dixon said.
SEPTA engineers attain the top rate after 15 years of service.
“It’s a real fair deal; they did well,” said Patrick Battel, SEPTA’s chief labor negotiator.
The average engineer made $85,000 last year, and will probably make $95,000 by the end of the contract, Battel said. He added that those figures include large amounts of overtime pay: “They work a lot of hours to get to that level.”
BLET’s tentative contract mirrors many of the terms already accepted by a number of SEPTA unions. The engineers had pushed for an additional 4 percent raise that Transport Workers Union Local 234 received two years ago during a contract extension, but SEPTA refused.
Dixon said other provisions in the contract would make up for that money, including $1,000 signing bonuses and improvements to on-duty death benefits, life insurance, retiree prescription coverage, parking allowances, bereavement leave, and certification allowances for maintaining their licenses.
In the union’s biggest concession, members will begin paying 1 percent of their 40-hour pay toward health-care costs. That concession was also accepted by other SEPTA unions, but the engineers’ health-care contributions will not kick in until Aug. 1, 2008.
Railroad engineers are forbidden from striking, under federal law, until after a lengthy arbitration process. The first steps in that procedure had begun when the tentative contract was reached earlier this month.
Union members cast secret ballots on the deal last week. The results will be announced at Monday night’s BLET meeting.