Buses, subways and trolleys were running again Tuesday in
the Philadelphia area more than 24 hours after the expiration of a workers
contract, and transit agency officials said they were waiting for the union's
response to their final offer.
No bargaining was scheduled for Tuesday, said Jerri
Williams, a spokeswoman for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation
Authority.
Thousands of members of the Transport Workers Union are
working without a contract. After negotiations broke off Sunday night, union
president Willie Brown said employees would stay on the job "for a
while."
A work stoppage would involve all city transit lines and
suburban buses and trolleys. They provide about 900,000 daily trips, including
for thousands of public school students.
On Monday, the union sent a letter to SEPTA negotiators
reiterating previous requests for data on employee demographics, pension costs
and medical claims.
"Indeed, we cannot continue to negotiate over health
benefits and other matters currently on the table without first receiving the
information we requested," Brown wrote.
Though SEPTA's 13 commuter lines would continue operating in
the event of a strike, Williams noted the engineers have been without a
contract since 2010.
Those workers are covered by federal railway law and cannot
strike until all their mediation options are exhausted, Williams said. That
wouldn't happen for another several months, she said.
Negotiators have already made detailed presentations to the
union on those topics, Williams said. But she added that SEPTA is working to
comply with the requests, which encompass a huge amount of highly detailed
statistics.
In the meantime, "SEPTA would be happy to discuss any
specific request that may allow the parties to move the process forward and
resume negotiations," she said.
The agency said it offered employees a two-year contract
with wage increases of 2 percent the first year and 3 percent in the second
year, a boost over a previous offer of a 2.75 percent wage increase in the
second year. But workers would have to spend an additional 1 percent of their
wages on health care premiums under the deal.
Employee wages and benefits account for about 70 percent of
SEPTA's $1.3 billion operating budget this year. The average annual salary for
a bus driver, including overtime, is about $65,000.
According to the union, points of contention in bargaining
include discipline, use of surveillance cameras, pensions and the effect of the
new federal health care law.
The contract with 4,700 employees in SEPTA's city division,
including bus, subway and trolley operators, expired March 15. Contracts with
two suburban SEPTA branches expired April 1, and the deal with a third suburban
division expired late Sunday. Those three contracts cover about 750 bus
drivers, mechanics and trolley and light rail operators.
SEPTA, the nation's sixth-largest transit operator, serves
Philadelphia and its surrounding counties and has annual ridership of about 337
million.
The transit lines within the city of Philadelphia provide
about 825,000 passenger trips on an average weekday, while the suburban fleet
offers 75,000. They include thousands of students who take SEPTA to get to and
from city schools. Thirteen regional commuter lines would not be affected by a
strike.
A 2009 strike by city transit workers lasted six days.
Source: NBC10.com
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