Transit police avoid Thanksgiving strike by pausing negotiations with SEPTA until December

Leaders of the transit police union decided Wednesday to put their plans for a strike against SEPTA on hold until Dec. 13 at which point the members will decide whether to strike after a formal analysis of the transit agency’s latest contract offer.

The union represents about 170 officers who protect SEPTA stations and its buses, trolleys and subways. They have been working without a contract since March 31.

The union says the latest proposal fell short of the agency’s promises that patrol officers would be offered parity with the agreement ratified earlier this month with SEPTA’s largest union, Transport Workers Union Local 234, which represents bus, trolley, and transit train operators, mechanics and others.

The one-year TWU contract includes a 13% raise paid in two installments, plus a $3,000 signing bonus and some pension adjustments.

“After discussions this morning with the 11 members of the FOTP board, we’ve decided to hit pause on a strike for now,” said Omari Bervine, a SEPTA patrol officer who is president of the Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109.

The union would strike immediately if a majority of members vote in December to reject the offer SEPTA has put on the table, he said, adding that if they approve it, leaders would sign a contract based on those terms. Union members already voted last month to authorize a walkout at any point.

“We urge FOTP leadership to continue negotiations so that we can reach an agreement on a contract that is fair to our hardworking police officers and is financially responsible for the authority as a whole,” SEPTA said in a statement.

On Tuesday, after several hours of in-person talks at SEPTA headquarters on Market Street on the new proposal, police union leaders said members believed it did not give them enough — and said that the transit agency’s team told them it could not afford to increase the offer.

“They’re tapped, that’s their position,” said Troy Parkham, the union’s vice president, during a break in negotiations late Tuesday afternoon. “SEPTA has drawn its line in the sand.”

During the pause, the union will prepare a study analyzing SEPTA’s finances and the cost of management’s recent proposal, estimating what it should be able to afford. The economist will compare the pending offer to the agreement with TWU Local 234 and conclude whether the two deals are equal.

“We certainly hope [SEPTA], after seeing the analysis, will honor their promise of pattern bargaining, improve their offer and bring us up to parity,” Bervine said in a statement. At a general membership meeting tentatively scheduled for Dec. 13., members will discuss the SEPTA offer and any additional proposals the agency may make after the Thanksgiving holiday, followed by a ratification vote, the union said.

SEPTA proposed a two-year deal on Tuesday 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 union spurned a 13% raise spread over three years, plus the signing bonus.

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.

This year, the Fraternal Order of Transit Police says that its ranks are 25% smaller than budgeted, despite an influx of recruits, as officers continue to leave for jobs at Amtrak, Temple University or other law enforcement agencies in the region.

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 commuter-line competitors, including Amtrak and MTA railroads in New York, union officials say, leading to canceled train runs and understaffing.

Transit funding is often in flux and SEPTA and its peers have pleaded poverty before. But they face unusual financial headwinds at the moment.

SEPTA 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.