(The following article by Larry King was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on July 6. Richard Dixon is the BLET’s General Chairman on SEPTA.)
PHILADELPHIA — Less than a year after a weeklong strike stilled buses, subways and trolleys, SEPTA once again faces the threat of a shutdown – this time, regional commuter trains.
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), whose 195 local members run SEPTA regional-rail trains, have worked without a contract for almost a year.
Union leaders and SEPTA are at odds over wages.
In November, the transit authority gave its largest union – Transport Workers Union Local 234 – a four-year deal with annual 3 percent raises. But the engineers’ union says SEPTA has been unwilling to do the same for its members.
The only engineers’ strike to hit SEPTA was a 108-day walkout in 1983, SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said.
Federal law makes it difficult for strikes to hit commuter rail lines. Even so, a timetable has begun that would enable engineers to strike by as early as September.
“From our standpoint, the issue is economics, more in the area of wages than benefits,” Maloney said. “We’ve been negotiating for the better part of a year and have been unable to come up with a contract agreement.”
Richard Dixon, general chairman of the union, said that BLET agreed in May to accept unconditional arbitration, but that SEPTA had not.
President Bush now has ordered a three-member emergency board to review the dispute and produce a report within 30 days. The panel’s timetable officially begins Saturday.
Under the Railway Labor Act, the union can go on strike 30 days after the board issues its report. Dixon, however, said that timetable can be, and often is, extended.
On average, about 60,000 passengers ride SEPTA’s regional rails each weekday. It is the only sector of SEPTA whose ridership has shown steady, significant growth in recent years.
SEPTA typically gives its smaller unions similar terms to those received by TWU Local 234, Dixon said. But BLET members have not been offered the same annual 3 percent raises, he said, even though SEPTA is asking engineers to start putting 1 percent of their pay toward the cost of their healthcare premiums.