(The following story by Sandy Bauers, Sam Wood and Paul Nussbaum appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on November 9, 2009.)
PHILADELPHIA — The city’s subways, buses and trolleys are back in service this morning after SEPTA and its largest union reached a tentative agreement to end a six-day strike.
The deal, brokered in the early morning hours, now goes for ratification by the more than 5,000 members of Transport Workers Union Local 234 who walked off the job at 3 a.m. last Tuesday.
SEPTA is advising riders that they may encounter delays as service is restored gradually throughout the system. The system slowly came back to life starting about 4 a.m.
The strike left an estimated 450,000 riders, including students, to find other ways to get around. Weekly transit passes that were bought before the walkout are being honored today.
The end to the six-day walkout came in dramatic fashion, as union leaders joined SEPTA officials about 12:45 this morning at a news conference outside the Center City office of Gov. Rendell, who brokered the deal a day after he said he was giving up on efforts to settle the strike.
Attending the news conference were U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, who has mediated SEPTA strikes in the past, Mayor Nutter and Local 234 president Willie Brown.
Brady said he never stopped talking to the union, which over the weekend backed off from an agreement reached late Friday.
“Negotiations never broke off. We never stopped talking,” Brady said. “Some numbers had to be massaged. . . . Everybody cooperated.”
Rendell, who had blamed union leaders for the collapse of Friday’s tentative agreement, had only praise for Brown this morning.
“Willie Brown did his job well for his members,” he said. “That’s the nature of the collective-bargaining process.” Nutter said the most important thing was that “the system will be up and running” this morning.
Brown, who nodded in agreement, said a ratification vote would be held in a week and a half.
After the collapse of Friday’s agreement, Rendell had threatened to withdraw nearly $7 million in state funds to pay for bonuses of $1,250 per worker. By signing the pact, the TWU, which represents 5,100 drivers, operators and mechanics, preserved the bonuses.
The five-year contract also calls for a 2.5 percent raise in the second year, and a 3 percent raise in each of the final three years. It increases workers’ contributions to the pension fund from the current 2 percent to 3 percent, and increases the maximum pension to $30,000 a year from the current $27,000 a year.
The strike ended much as it started: in the middle of the night, with many in the city unaware of what would await them in the morning.
Earlier yesterday, officials on both sides had made it clear that no new talks had been scheduled and that this morning’s commute would be much like last week’s: with the nearly one million riders who use SEPTA’s City and Frontier Division buses and trolleys and the Broad Street Line and Market-Frankford El every weekday having to find alternatives.
The strike’s impact was minimal yesterday, with people taking advantage of balmy weather to walk to their destinations. Some churches set up car pools to get members to services.
Otherwise, the city seemed to take a breather from the angst. Not even a planned demonstration against Local 234 outside SEPTA headquarters on Market Street came off.
The strike appeared to have been settled late Friday, when Rendell and Brady announced a tentative agreement with the union.
On Saturday, however, Local 234 leadership rejected a contract offer that the governor and the mayor considered generous, given the current economic climate.
Rendell and Nutter were angered that the union and SEPTA had reached what the governor called a handshake agreement – and the union balked.
Yesterday afternoon, union spokesman Jamie Horwitz said: “The governor was correct. There was essentially a handshake agreement on some of the big issues related to salary and pension funding. “But the devil is in the details. And when the contract was sent over, it included a couple things that were difficult for the union,” Horwitz said.