Transport Workers Union has authorized a strike against SEPTA

Members of Transport Workers Union Local 234, SEPTA’s largest, voted unanimously on Sunday to authorize leaders to call a strike against the transit agency, less than two weeks before the local’s current contract expires and with little apparent progress in talks.

At the strike authorization vote, held at the Sheet Metal Workers union hall in South Philadelphia, TWU Local 234 President Brian Pollitt said that safety was the union’s top issue.

“We’re looking for safety and security, for our membership and the riding public, and economic justice,” he said. “What they’re offering so far isn’t satisfactory.”

Local 234 represents bus, subway and trolley operators, mechanics, cashiers, maintenance people and custodians, primarily in the city.

A strike authorization does not mean the roughly 5,000-member union would immediately walk off the job. The union has been working under a one-year contract that expires at 11:59 p.m. Nov. 7, two days after Election Day. Negotiations will continue, but Pollitt and his team now have the leverage of a potential job action in their pocket if an agreement isn’t reached by that deadline.

After voting Sunday, exiting union members expressed frustration with SEPTA management.

“It’s about time,” said subway worker Jay Quinn, of the strike authorization. “Safety is the big concern for everybody.”

The vote came as SEPTA faces a fiscal crisis that could bring service cuts and a second fare increase soon, with no action in Harrisburg on state aid for public transportation systems around the state. In addition, CEO and General Manager Leslie S. Richards abruptly announced Thursday she would be leaving Nov. 29, with no public explanation for her departure.

In bulletins posted to the union’s website, Local 234 said SEPTA wants members to accept a one-year contract with no raises even as the cost of living rises. The two sides have met several times.

SEPTA officials have countered that the funding impasse in Harrisburg, ridership declines, and the exhaustion of pandemic assistance funds had left the agency in an impossible position.

“A major factor in these negotiations is SEPTA’s ongoing funding crisis,” agency spokesperson Andrew Busch said in a statement on Sunday. “SEPTA is facing an operating budget deficit of nearly a quarter billion dollars annually. We continue to work with Gov. Shapiro and legislative leaders on sustainable, long-term funding, but at this point, there is no solution in sight.”

The two groups have been allies in mobilizing political support for more transit funding this fall, but the union has also publicly decried SEPTA’s management team using financial insecurity as a reason not to increase wages.

“SEPTA might be telling us to drop dead, but that does not mean we are just going to roll over and die,” the union said in its newsletter on Oct. 17.

On Sunday, Pollitt again said officials were using the state funding fight as a smoke screen.

“If SEPTA [management] can find money for the things they want to prioritize, they can find money for us,” Pollitt said in response to questions about SEPTA’s grim financial outlook. “We want more law enforcement patrolling the system, bus and trolley.”

The union and SEPTA previously reached agreement on Oct. 27 last year, avoiding a strike that would have paralyzed the region. The previous contract raised wages 7% across the board and provided a $3,000 signing bonus to each Local 234 member.

Also hanging over the final hours of those talks was the killing of Bernard N. Gribben, a veteran Route 23 bus operator, shot to death a day earlier in Germantown by a passenger who was exiting through the front door, according to police.

The union had pressed for improvements in safety for its members and the public amid a rash of crime and antisocial behavior on the transit system, as well as a big increase in assaults on bus operators during and after the pandemic shutdowns.

Addressing personal safety was an animating issue for Local 234 in last year’s negotiations, as much as or more than winning economic gains. The agreement did not include any language on safety but in a side letter, SEPTA pledged to keep working on it.

One year later, and despite an overall reduction of crime across the system this year, drivers have continued to face violent assaults — a teen was shot inside a bus earlier this month, and a gunman opened fire on another bus days later. A day before the strike vote, TWU members gathered at SEPTA’s Midvale Depot to honor the one-year anniversary of Gribben’s murder.

At Sunday’s vote, TWU member and SEPTA trolley operator Marquise Brown said that while he had not personally faced any threats of violence, the recent incidents had left him and others on edge.

“My thing is safety, security and, of course, money,” he said. “But we need more cops on the beat. Not just down in the tunnels. We need them with us in the buses and trolleys because people are crazy.”

The local also represents 183 maintenance workers and 206 bus operators in the suburbs, but contracts in those divisions are set to expire later in November.

SEPTA is known as one of the most strike-prone large transit systems in the country. Since 1975, at least 11 unions have walked off the job.

Both TWU leadership and SEPTA officials said they were committed to continuing discussions, potentially moving to round-the-clock negotiations to stave off a strike.

“If there’s no agreement by midnight on November 7, our members will not report to work and SEPTA will not be able to provide transit service,” said Pollitt. “Anyone using public transit late that evening — or anytime the following week — should be aware that SEPTA management is creating this risk by failing to address our safety concerns and other matters.”