SEPTA workers strike; thousands caught off guard
(The following story by Robert Moran and Melissa Dribben appeared on the Philadelphia Inquirer website on November 3, 2009.)
PHILADELPHIA — Hundreds of thousands of commuters scrambled this morning to find a way to work or school after SEPTA's largest union staged a surprise pre-dawn strike, shutting down down all subway, bus and trolley service in the city.
The walkout by Transport Workers Union Local 243, which began at 3 a.m. and caught commuters off guard, also affected Frontier Division buses in Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester counties.
But Regional Rail, Paratransit and other services outside the city continued to run.
With Philadelphia Public School students off today for a teachers' in-service, the city should be spared the full impact of the strike until tomorrow.
As the first glimmer of dawn broke this morning, striking SEPTA workers huddled in small clusters around the Frankford Transportation Center as would-be passengers continued to arrive with no idea that nothing was operating.
Colleen Logan, 45, showed up at 5:20 a.m. to discover that she would not be able to ride the Market-Franford El to her job as a waitress at Snow White Restaurant in Old City.
"Yesterday it was supposed to be done and over with," Logan said. "Nobody really had a clue."
Logan said she feared that if the work stoppage drags on, she will be out of a job.
"They get paid well," she said of picketers. "They get enough benefits. What more do they want?"
Lorraine McClary and her friend, Patty Clark, woke up this morning to news of the strike and said they were more indignant than inconvenienced.
"I heard it was over money," said McClary, 48, a data specialist for Independence Blue Cross.
"Yes. Well, I want more money too! Everybody does," said Clark, 50, a pharmacy technician at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
"I have to pay double what I did last year for my benefits," McClary said.
Clark nodded and hmmphed in agreement. "You don't see us going on strike."
The two women take a cab every morning from their homes in Mt. Airy to the R7 station in Chestnut Hill to catch the first train at 5:55 a.m. into the city.
"Getting here isn't a problem because we take a cab," said McClary. "Getting home, that's another matter."
Two days a week, McClary takes a Septa bus to get to water aerobics class at Chestnut Hill College. "I guess I won't be able to go this week." In the long run, she said, the solution may be for her to get her own car.
"You know what SEPTA needs?" she said. "Competition!"
"This is bad for seniors trying to get to the hospital," Clark added. "And what about schoolkids?"
"For those parents who don't have cars," McClary said, "this is going to be hard."
The affected lines average more than 928,000 trips every weekday in the city, meaning that more than 450,000 people face finding alternate routes.
The strike even caught some members of the striking union unaware.
Sly Wagner, a train operator for 17 years, showed up at the Fern Rock station ready to go to work.
"I'm like everybody else," he said. "The only way I found out was when I went to the station and the gates were locked."
Other workers who showed up to go to work complained that the union made no effort to notify them,
"No texts, no tweets," said one.
The strike came after hours of negotiations broke down shortly before midnight.
Gov. Rendell called the decision to strike before dawn "irresponsible."
"This is an outrageous action," said Mayor Michael Nutter, who joined Rendell last night to address reporters in the lobby of the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue, where negotiations had been under way since 10 a.m. yesterday.
The sudden pre-dawn strike left many SEPTA riders stranded.
Walter Gordon, 45, of South Philadelphia, hoped to catch a final bus to work early this morning before the drivers went on strike. But at 3 a.m. at the Frankford Transportation Center, Gordon found himself staring at idle buses with no way to get to his Bucks County building maintenance job - "which is going to go down the tubes now," he said.
"What about us little guys who barely, barely make it?" he asked, resigned to the fact that he was going to have to figure out how to get back home.
"I think there's going to be an uproar in the city," said Frank Colsher, 20, who missed the last bus to take him home to Levittown.
"I don't know what I am going to do," said Colsher, who uses SEPTA to get to odd jobs performing home maintenance. "It's my only means of making any kind of money."
Several SEPTA drivers said they were not happy with the decision to go on strike, or at least with the timing of it. "I think it's wrong that they walked right after the game," said a trolley driver who, like other drivers interviewed, did not want to be identified while criticizing the union's action.
By not going on strike before the Philadelphia-set games of this year's World Series, "We lost momentum real bad," a bus driver said. "Might as well keep negotiations going."
Another complained about the possible repercussions of the abrupt decision to strike at 3 a.m. "You don't not want to have the people on your side," the driver said.
But on the other side of the Frankford facility, 15 striking workers gathered around a trash can fire and held up pickets that read "Strike for Justice."
"We gotta stick together," said one of the picketers, who also asked not to be named.
In the end, it was a difference over wages that sparked the walkout. Earlier Monday, transit officials disclosed that both sides had reached a tentative agreement on health care and were reportedly close on wages.
"Nobody wants to leave something on the table," U.S. Rep. Bob Brady, who had been involved in the negotiations since last week, said during yesterday evening's break.
But union president Willie Brown, in a telephone interview, painted a different picture early today.
"They wouldn't provide the proper numbers" during negotiations, Brown said. "When it comes right down to it, they've underfunded our pension for years."
Rendell said the union chose to walk away from an "excellent" contract offer that includes 11 percent in wage increases over five years, and 11 percent increase in pension contributions, an no increases in workers' contribution for health care.
"Think about that," Rendell said. "Whose pension has been increased in this day and age?"
According to TWU officials, SEPTA management has proposed no wage increase for the first two years of a four-year contract and a 2 percent increase in each of the final two years. It also wanted to increase worker contributions to health coverage from 1 percent to 4 percent and freeze the level of pension benefits.
The union wants a 4 percent raise each year and health contributions to remain 1 percent. It is also seeking an increase in pension contributions from $75 to $100 for every year of service.
The TWU also is seeking changes in subcontracting and training provisions to allow members to do maintenance and repair work on buses and trolleys now done by outside contractors.
SEPTA's 5,100 unionized bus drivers, subway and trolley operators earn from $14.54 to $24.24 an hour, reaching the top rate after four years. Mechanics earn $14.40 to $27.59 an hour.
The last strike happened in 2005 and lasted seven days. It finally ended after Brady got involved.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
