(The following story by Robert Moran appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on June 13.)
PHILADELPHIA — SEPTA and the transit police union are expected to resume talks this morning to avoid a threatened strike by officers.
“Transit police officers are still on the job, so they’re working their normal, regular shifts,” said SEPTA spokesman Felipe Suarez.
“We’re still waiting to reconvene this morning,” said Anthony Ingargiola, spokesman for the 200-member Fraternal Order of Transit Police.
Ingargiola said the union was told last night by SEPTA that talks would start again around 9 a.m. at the transit agency’s headquarters in Center City.
The union had set a deadline of 2 p.m. yesterday to strike if a contract agreement wasn’t reached. However, both sides agreed to continue negotiations and talks eventually broke off about 10 p.m. last night.
If transit police strike, SEPTA will rely on private security guards and Philadelphia police officers to protect riders, agency officials said.
The transit officers who patrol the Broad Street and Market-Frankford Lines want the same pay as officers in the Philadelphia Police Department, who start at about $39,000 a year.
The starting salary for a SEPTA police officer is $30,752 a year, with a maximum salary after four years of $49,804, including longevity payments.
SEPTA has offered its police a 3 percent annual wage increase over four years, a boost in longevity pay, and a requirement that police contribute 1 percent of their salary to help pay for health care.
The officers’ last contract expired Sept. 30, 2005, and was extended for one year. The union membership has rejected three tentative agreements.
Unlike Philadelphia police officers, transit police are not prohibited by law from striking, but they cannot compel binding arbitration to settle wage disputes.
Violent crime on the transit system, after years of decline, is up 81 percent since 2004. On March 26, Sean Patrick Conroy, a 36-year-old Starbucks store manager, collapsed and died after truant high schoolers beat him at the 13th Street Station on the Market-Frankford Line.