PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Regional Rail engineers say SEPTA has little incentive to hire more engineers because, for years, managers have been earning stipends by filling the shifts of engineers who have left for other jobs.
That’s why members of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen demonstrated outside SEPTA headquarters Wednesday, holding an oversized bank check.
Donald Hill, the general chairman of BLET Division 71, representing SEPTA engineers, said the check represents managers who are double-dipping.
“Management has been paying themselves extra money to perform the work of the locomotive engineers and conductors that run the trains every day,” Hill said.
He says SEPTA has 176 engineers, instead of the 230 needed. The union says a major reason for that is SEPTA pays less than other commuter railroads.
“Some of the managers are making a minimum $4,000 a month in addition to their regular salary — and we say that’s no way to run a railroad.”
SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch says the transit agency is committed to negotiations toward a new contract, and that having qualified managers fill in as engineers when union engineers aren’t available is a last resort.
“We don’t want to have a situation where managers are regularly in those roles,” Busch said.
Under contracts with the engineers and conductors’ unions that expired March 2, SEPTA managers are permitted to fill in, for a stipend, when a union engineer isn’t available.
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Busch said the transit agency is working to hire more Regional Rail engineers.
“We are bringing more people in. We do have a good number of engineers in training. So we do think they’re attractive jobs.”
There’s no threat of a strike. The union engineers and conductors remain on the job, while contract talks with a mediator continue, as federal law requires. Conductors are represented by union SMART-61. They’re in mediation as well, and joined the BLET protest.
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