Transit police union says members ‘want to walk now’ as tense talks with SEPTA persist

Members of the transit police union consider SEPTA’s latest contract offer too skimpy and “want to walk now,” but the leadership will continue talking with management for now to try to get more money, union Vice President Troy Parham said Tuesday.

“We’re making progress, but I have to tell you I don’t believe that we’re near the end at all,” Parham said about 4 p.m. during a short break in the negotiations at SEPTA headquarters on Market Street. “Our members don’t like the deal. We need to get something to sell them.”

SEPTA also has told the Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109, which represents about 170 patrol officers, that it cannot afford to do better, Parham said.

“We’re still talking and we’ll talk as long as they’ll talk, but I don’t know how much longer we can do it if your official stance is there’s no more money,” he said.

As of 5:30 p.m. the two sides were still negotiating.

» READ MORE: SEPTA police may walk off the job. Here’s what you need to know for your commute.

On the table now, Parham said: A two-year deal that would give the patrol officers a 6% raise, with half paid in the first year and the rest in the second, as well as a $3,000 signing bonus. On Monday, the Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109 spurned a 13% raise spread over three years, plus the signing bonus.

A key issue: Transit police union leaders have said they want the same deal given to Transport Workers Union Local 234, SEPTA’s largest, in a new one-year contract ratified earlier this month — which includes a 13% raise paid in two installments, plus $3,000 signing bonus and some pension adjustments.

SEPTA traditionally uses contracts reached with TWU Local 234 to set a template for deals with other unions, a tactic known as “pattern bargaining.” The 5,000-member local represents bus, trolley, and transit train operators, mechanics and others.

Word of the latest offer came Monday night at the deadline set by the union, even as members of the Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109 were meeting to discuss walking off the job. Leaders decided to delay a strike to consider it.

The proposal was presented to the transit police union’s bargaining team on Tuesday at about 2 p.m., after the meeting was pushed back from 11 a.m.

“The fact that there hasn’t been a strike … we consider that in and of itself progress from where we were a couple of days ago,” SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said earlier Tuesday afternoon. “We think the best way to go forward is to continue negotiating.”

The transit police officers’ contract expired in March, and union members voted last month to authorize a walkout.

In 2019, transit officers walked out for six days, in part over whether members could review body-camera footage before filing incident reports. They struck in 2012 over a 15-cent difference between the FOTP’s demand and SEPTA’s offer for an increase in the hourly rate members received for annual recertification as police officers.

Unlike union-represented municipal police officers such as those in Philadelphia, who must keep working while contract impasses are decided in mandatory binding arbitration, SEPTA’s transit officers are permitted to strike. There is no right to binding arbitration under the 1981 state law that established the force.

Union leaders say SEPTA police officers are paid less than other departments in the region offer, contributing to understaffing as some leave for higher wages and better working condition. The labor dispute comes amid heightened public concern about increased crime and unruly behavior on the transit system.

» READ MORE: SEPTA must negotiate contracts with nearly all its labor unions amid looming financial crisis

A number of other SEPTA employee unions are also demanding more money to correct pay disparities with other agencies; unions representing Regional Rail engineers and conductors voted Monday to authorize a strike once they have exhausted the multistep mediation requirements of the Federal Railway Labor Act.

Many locomotive engineers and conductors have fled for computer-line competitors, including Amtrak and MTA railroads in New York, union officials say, leading to canceled train runs and understaffing.

At the same time, the authority anticipates an annual $240 million deficit in its operating budget starting in 2024, as it spends the last of its federal pandemic aid. A possible new funding mechanism for state transit agencies, which SEPTA says would give it $190 million yearly from the sales tax, is stalled in the legislature.

“We have to be careful. We don’t have much room when it comes to additional money,” Busch said.