SEPTA, rail engineers reach tentative agreement

Negotiators for SEPTA and Regional Rail locomotive engineers reached a tentative agreement Monday, which will avert a possible strike if the pact is accepted by the engineers and the SEPTA board.

The deal provides for SEPTA's 220 engineers to get an 8.5 percent wage increase when the contract is approved and a 3 percent raise next April.

The engineers, who had not received a raise since their last contract ended in 2010, got a 35-cent-an-hour increase last month to reflect a traditional differential above conductors' pay.

All together, the engineers' increases will amount to 13.3 percent above the current pay by next April, the union said.

The engineers, as well as railroad electrical workers, went on a one-day strike in June, but were required to return to work when President Obama named a mediation panel to try to settle the long-running dispute. That panel issued recommendations in July largely supporting SEPTA's position, and those terms formed the basis of Monday's agreement. Obama named a second panel, effective Monday, after the term of the first one expired.

The engineers said they were prepared to strike again in February, when the second presidential board's term expires, if an agreement was not reached. That raised the prospect of a coordinated strike with unions representing bus drivers, and subway and trolley operators, who are also without new contracts and in on-going negotiations with SEPTA.

Such a coordinated action could have meant the first complete shutdown of all SEPTA service in the transit agency's 50-year history.

Under the tentative agreement reached Monday, the top wage rate for engineers would increase by $4 per hour, to $34.10 an hour by next April. Engineers, who typically work six-day weeks, now earn an average of $95,290 a year, SEPTA said.

About 126,000 passengers ride SEPTA commuter trains daily, on average.

SEPTA agreed to drop its demand that engineers wear uniforms, which had been one of the points of contention in the talks.

The engineers said they will continue to press for changes in safety procedures outside of the contract talks.

Steve Bruno, national vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and the lead negotiator for the SEPTA engineers, praised the tentative agreement as "a compromise on economic issues."

He said union complaints about long workdays and six-day weeks for engineers will be taken to the Federal Railroad Administration.

The tentative new contract, which covers the period since the last term ended in 2010, will end in July 2015. That means negotiations for the next contract will begin almost immediately.

Results of the ratification vote by the union members are to be announced within 30 days, and SEPTA's board has empowered its chairman, Pasquale "Pat" Deon Sr., to approve the contract on the board's behalf.

Source: Philly.com