So where are things with that SEPTA strike again?
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
A brief history of SEPTA strikes to let you know whether to expect your bus to show.
Douglas Muth via Flickr Creative Commons
1. The Trasport Workers Union Local 234 is not striking today, obviously. @SEPTA_SOCIAL has been reassuring people about it all day.
2. They had not, however, agreed on a new contract with SEPTA as of midnight Sunday when their previous contract expired, and could still strike whenever. Negotiatons yesterday were apparently pretty heated, which is why everybody says they agreed to just try again today.
3. Both sides are back at the negotiating table today.
4. If there's a strike, the city buses, subway, el, trolleys and Norristown high-speed line will stop running. The Regional Rail lines, University City's LUCY bus and some suburban bus routes, and the CCT shuttles for people with disabilities and the elderly would still be running.
5. If you bought an April TransPass and are now slapping your forehead, SEPTA says that "riders who purchased transit passes before a service interruption may receive full or partial refunds for unused passes." Unclear on how, but nice to know.
SEPTA workers have gone on strike several times since the '70s; the longest recent one that affected this many areas of service was for 40 days in 1998. (Some places cite a 108-day strike in 1983, but that was much more complicated than it sounds and was mostly about the recently acquired Regional Rail lines.)
It may be somewhat reassuring to hear that the only strike that involved shutting down most of SEPTA for more than a month in the last four decades — the one in 1998 — was less over raises and benefits, like in these current negotiations, but over larger-scale stuff:
Unlike previous TWU-SEPTA disputes, it was not a battle over traditional economic issues like wage in- creases and health insurance benefits. Instead, the struggle was prompted by the company's desire to change work rules ... including the right to assign work, hire part timers, contract out work, and dismiss workers who violated the company's drug and alcohol policy.
Plus, SEPTA general manager Louis Gambaccini, who'd been a key voice in persuading management to deal with the unions, had just left, and the unions didn't like his replacement, nor the negotiator SEPTA chose, nor that more than the usual economic stuff was suddenly on the table.
As a contrast, the last couple strikes, in 2005 and 2009, were over similar issues to what's being negotiated now: Raises and benefits. Those recent strikes lasted only about a week each. (Yes, one of those weeks was when the Phillies were winning the World Series, but it was still only a week.) We're not soothsayers over here, but we hope that this brief history lesson gives you a better idea of what to expect.
