SEPTA’s transit police union vote to ratify a new contract

The union for Philadelphia’s transit police officers has ratified a three-year contract with SEPTA after months of negotiations and a three-day strike.

Members of the Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109 voted throughout the day Wednesday, with 81 of roughly 170 members participating. Only one voted against ratification, union president Omari Bervine said.

“We definitely achieved our goal,” Bervine said. “We just wanted equity in terms of what was being given to the other unions” representing SEPTA’s workforce.

The SEPTA board now must approve the agreement. It’s expected to vote at a meeting on Thursday.

“We believe this contract proposal is fair to our hard-working police officers, and is also fiscally responsible for SEPTA as we approach an uncertain financial future with the fiscal cliff looming in the spring,” SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said in a statement Wednesday. “We were pleased to be able to reach a tentative agreement on this contract with the FOTP on Saturday, which resulted in our police officers returning to their regular patrols.”

SEPTA agreed to the union’s demand that the contract phase in a 13% raise for officers over 36 months. That was important for keeping SEPTA’s police officers on the same schedule for raises as the transit agency’s other unions, the FOTP has said.

The contract includes improved workers’ compensation terms, Bervine said, as well as paid pregnancy disability. Members will be able to take two weeks of paid leave after giving birth, or four weeks if they have a disability directly related to their pregnancy, he said. Previously, they could only take unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Bervine said it will be easier to attract talent to the transit police with the contract’s wage increases and other improvements. “We still have a little work to do to catch up to some of these other places, but you can’t make it all up at once,” he said. The contract also includes new lateral hiring conditions that will allow experienced officers who join SEPTA police to carry over time from their previous department and start at a pay rate comparable to what they were making before, he said.

The ratification came one week after officers walked off the job. The three days of negotiations that followed were tense, with Bervine at one point saying talks were “actually moving in reverse.”

Transit police supervisors and officers in the Philadelphia Police Department covered the transit system during the strike, Busch said, adding “we know we are at our best with our 178 police officers out on the system.”

The agreement reached Saturday was brokered in part by Gov. Josh Shapiro. SEPTA CEO Leslie S. Richards said the governor played “a key role bringing people together to forge this agreement,” and Bervine said Shapiro “stepped up to the plate.”

SEPTA last year agreed to raise starting pay for transit police officers by 25% and to shorten the amount of time it takes them to reach the top pay rate. A police academy class of 20 officers hired under the new terms graduated in the spring. But the raises still left SEPTA police behind other departments, Bervine said earlier this year.

Meanwhile, SEPTA is projecting an annual operating deficit of $240 million beginning July 1 as the last of its federal pandemic aid is spent, and the system is struggling to restore ridership to pre-pandemic levels.

The new contract for transit police comes weeks after the transit authority’s largest union, 5,000-member Transport Workers Union Local 234, ratified a one-year contract. TWU’s bus, trolley, and subway operators and mechanics had threatened to strike but ultimately reached an agreement with SEPTA days before their prior contract was set to expire.

Conductors and engineers on SEPTA’s Regional Rail system authorized a strike in November, but their ability to walk off the job is governed by federal railroad laws, requiring a specific process through contract negotiations before a work stoppage can happen. SEPTA’s workforce is represented by 14 different bargaining units, and many of them are currently negotiating contracts or will be doing so soon.

Staff writer Tom Fitzgerald contributed to this article.