PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — There won't be a SEPTA strike come Monday.
The Transport Workers Union Local 234 has reached a tentative agreement with SEPTA, both said Friday morning.
The two-year contract offers 3% annual wage increases, two weeks paid parental leave, no increase in health care payments for members, and other benefits. It also adds Juneteenth as a paid holiday.
In addition, the agreement offers a one-time pandemic hazard payment — $1 for every hour worked between March 2020 and 2021, with a maximum of $2,200.
The agreement awaits final approval by union members and the SEPTA board. A union vote is scheduled for Nov. 5.
TWU Local 234 represents about 5,000 Philadelphia-area transit workers.
Negotiations began back in July. SEPTA workers threatened to strike if an agreement was not reached by the time the current contract expires, which is midnight on Sunday.
“I am very pleased that we were able to come to terms without a strike,” said TWU Local 234 President Willie Brown in a statement. “Our members are essential workers who move Philadelphia and who have risked their lives putting their own families at risk during this pandemic.”
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The agreement gives each side some of what it wanted, and it gives riders the assurance that buses, trains and trolleys will be rolling on Monday.
“SEPTA’s frontline employees were critical to keeping our region moving during the worst of the pandemic, and this agreement reflects their dedication and sacrifice,” added SEPTA CEO and General Manager Leslie Richards in a statement. “I would like to thank the negotiating teams on both sides of the table for working in good faith to reach an agreement amid what are truly unprecedented challenges.”
“I’m glad they got (3%) raises, they got hazardous duty pay, they got Juneteenth as a holiday," Brown also said. “The only thing we did not get, we were not able to get death benefits for people who passed away (from COVID-19)."
With a two-year deal, SEPTA buys time to see whether ridership is going to rebound. It’s at less than half of pre-pandemic levels now, and the authority is losing $1 million a day in revenue.
SEPTA also has to find a way to replace Pennsylvania Turnpike toll revenue and federal COVID-19 money, according to SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch.
“The shorter deal makes a lot of sense because we can look about two years ahead with the federal COVID relief funding that we have,” he said. “After about two years, that expires.”
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The union originally demanded a four-year contract. SEPTA, uncertain of its financial future, proposed a four-year deal with wage increases tied to a return of ridership. Willie Brown said his union opted for the two-year deal.
“We had to be reasonable as far as the union because we know the ridership is not where it should be – where it once was. So you have to take all of that into consideration,” Brown told KYW Newsradio.
"You can do two things in negotiation: You can negotiate yourself into a job or out of a job. We had to make sure the things we were asking for were reasonable so they wouldn’t put us out of a job."
The agreement did not include new safety measures, but Brown said the two sides would continue to address it.
“It’s something we’re going to keep working on. A lot of the things you see them introduce now are things that we’ve already introduced before, the update that they are proposing. So we’re going to keep working on it.”
Brown said talks were tough, but progress was made after last Sunday’s strike vote.
“They (SEPTA) played hardball," Brown said. "Once they saw the members weren’t buying into it, that members were standing up, I think that set everything up.”
