(The following article by Jere Downs was posted on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on March 11.)
PHILADELPHIA — Like many SEPTA regulars, Logan resident Barbara Bowman wondered yesterday how she would get around should transit workers go on strike when their contract expires at 12:01 a.m. Monday.
“I have been thinking about it all day,” Bowman, 20, said as she boarded the subway yesterday at City Hall. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Although talks between SEPTA and its largest union, Transport Workers Union Local 234, continued yesterday, the agency announced plans to deal with a walkout by the more than 4,700 operators and mechanics in the SEPTA City Transit Division.
Those plans, however, amounted to very little. SEPTA would not employ replacement workers, and managers would not operate the system’s buses and trolleys.
SEPTA general manager Faye Moore advised riders to rely on Regional Rail and to “take their patience pill” and check www.septa.org on the Web or call 215-580-7800 for updates.
A strike would halt all bus and trolley service within the city as well as the Market-Frankford El and the Broad Street Line.
And although Regional Rail, suburban transit, and the PATCO High-Speed Line would not be affected, a strike would have severe effects on the region; about 500,000 people ride SEPTA daily in the city.
A demand from the debt-ridden agency that Local 234 employees help pay for health care is the sticking point of these negotiations, which began Feb. 12.
Most Local 234 employees make no monthly payments for health insurance. New employees pay part of their health costs for the first three years on the job.
SEPTA has proposed that all Local 234 workers kick in 20 percent of the cost of health care and pay half of annual health-care cost increases. The union has estimated that those costs would be as much as $50 a week for each worker.
SEPTA’s proposal also offers no annual wage increases for the first two years of a four-year contract.
“I don’t hear any coworkers talking about the lack of a wage increase,” a subway cashier – who asked that her name not be used – said yesterday. “But a lot of people are willing to hit the bricks to defend our health care.”
The rank and file voted last weekend to give union president Jean Alexander the authority to call a strike.
After a meeting of the union leadership last night, Alexander said she remained “optimistic” about the negotiations even though the two sides remain far apart on questions of pay and health care. She said she had made a counterproposal to SEPTA on Monday and expected to hear the agency’s reply at negotiations scheduled for 1 p.m. today.
Moore said SEPTA’s health-care costs for city transit workers have risen 43 percent since 2001. During the same period, the chronic lack of dependable state funding has left SEPTA anticipating a $70 million hole in its $875 million fiscal 2005 budget, she added.
A strike would seriously disrupt the Philadelphia School District. About 20,000 district students – as well as 19,000 charter and private-school students – use SEPTA to get to and from school, district officials said.
Also, a strike would come during the administration of state and district standardized tests. The Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests will be administered beginning March 22, and the testing period for that exam and the district’s TerraNova standardized tests extends into mid-April.
“A SEPTA strike could not only keep students from attending school, but it could cripple our students’ efforts to score well on our next round of PSSA and TerraNova tests,” said James Nevels, chairman of the School Reform Commission.
The tests are critical for the school district, which was taken over by the state more than two years ago because of declining student achievement. Ninety-five percent of a school’s students who are expected to take the test must do so in order for the school to be eligible to meet Adequate Yearly Progress guidelines, described under the federal No Child Left Behind law.