(The following story by Jere Downs appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on February 13.)
PHILADELPHIA — After the traditional ceremonial handshake that kicked off contract talks yesterday between SEPTA and its largest union, agency general manager Faye Moore warmly embraced Jean Alexander, president of Transport Workers Union Local 234.
And so, in a meeting room of the Wyndham Franklin Plaza hotel in Center City, talks between the two sides began with perhaps the warmest of starts in recent memory.
Still, asked what they expect between now and March 15 when the contract expires with about 4,700 city bus drivers, cashiers and mechanics, Moore and Alexander both spoke of a relationship forged over the last year as they fiercely lobbied for more transit funding in Harrisburg.
“I like the spirit in this room today,” Moore, 53, said after trading contract proposals with Alexander. “We have worked together and we will work together.”
Alexander, 67, said: “I am really confident we will be able to do this contract and things will work out well.”
Still, each side has problems that could complicate negotiations: SEPTA is staring into the maw of a deficit of up to $70 million in fiscal 2005; and Alexander has a tenuous hold on her union leadership.
Local 234’s board has fired Alexander twice in the last year. She was restored to power only on Jan. 16, by the union’s international headquarters in New York.
Despite SEPTA’s continuing fiscal straits, Alexander was upbeat when asked about the prospects for a repeat of the 40-day strike of 1998. That strike shut down city bus and subway service, but not other SEPTA operations such as regional rail, because those workers have different union contracts.
“We all know a strike is not good for anybody,” Alexander said.
As of yesterday, neither had read the other’s proposal, so there was no indication what they contained. The first bargaining session has been scheduled for Tuesday, at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza.
The two women have their work cut out for them.
For one thing, their deadlines do not match Harrisburg’s political calendar.
By law, Moore and her 15-member SEPTA board must act to balance the agency’s budget by June 30, the end of the fiscal year. Gov. Rendell’s fiscal 2005 budget proposal amounts to $8 million to offset SEPTA’s projected $70 million fiscal 2005 deficit.
At a conference this week devoted to transit funding, however, both Rendell and key legislators from the Republican majority said it was unlikely new taxes required to deliver substantial transit relief would take place before the fall election cycle.
And then there is the union’s timetable.
The contract expires March 15, and the union has historically extended a one-week extension before before strike murmurs begin.
Is a one-year contract extension possible? That has never happened before, SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said, but Moore did not rule it out.
“Almost anything is possible,” Moore said, “but we cannot live on what may happen. We still have to make decisions.”
As SEPTA and Local 234 negotiate this contract, they are hammering out the majority – or about 70 percent – of the transit agency’s operating budget.
The average Local 234 worker makes $47,840 a year. Every 3 percent annual increase SEPTA grants will cost the agency about $7 million a year.
What is clearly at stake for both sides is health care. Like SEPTA’s non-union workforce, most Local 234 employees make no monthly payments for health insurance. Since 2001, the agency has absorbed a 43 percent increase in health-care costs – or about $45 million. Soaring costs of prescription drugs will also be an issue. Local 234 retirees currently enjoy prescription insurance coverage for life.
“My retirees are worried about their benefits,” Alexander said. “My young people are worried about their health care.”