SEPTA Employees Overpaid?

At the end of this article:

http://www.delcotimes.com/site/news.cfm ... 8171&rfi=6

is a telling comment from one SEPTA rider:

Shaun Kessler, 24, of Drexel Hill, was in a hurry to hop on the Route 110 bus to Pilgrim Gardens/Springfield Mall.

"Personally, I think it’s just a joke to get more money," he said.

"They make more than enough money," he said, adding that he believed SEPTA employees are among the highest paid in the nation.

A similar comment I hear is that employees don't feel any urgency in getting their jobs done, whether it's some SEPTA railroad conductors or bus drivers delaying passengers, or SEPTA management concerning capital projects such as the Market Street El reconstruction.

I think the people may be on to something about SEPTA -- that they're slow, inefficient, and overpaid for the work they do. Labor and benefit costs are 71% of SEPTA's total costs, and rising faster than inflation. FY 2003 labor and benefits was $580,264,000, and FY 2004 was $608,111,000. The proposed FY 2005 budget for labor and benefits is $643,767,000, a 5.9% increase.

Because labor is such a large chunk of their expenses, if they had a 10.9% across-the-board cut in labor and benefits, they can close that $70 million gap. Similar measures have been taken in the airline industry. But, of course, transit is still a state-regulated monopoly like the airlines before 1978, and has laws protecting transit workers from such wage pressures. I don't know what the solution for this situation will be, but I don't see it going away.

...employees are grossly underpaid as compared to railroad workers across the nation.

Between SEPTA, NJT, Amtrak, CSX, NS, and Shared Assets (just to use this area as an example), SEPTA is at the bottom when it comes to wages....

Joe

I've known several people who wanted to get into transit work. They started with SEPTA because they knew they could quickly get a job due to turnover. They put up with the low pay and Dilbert management, but once they learned the ropes they applied to MTA, Amtrak or who(m?)ever and were outta there. Of course that meant some of the good guys and gals were gone, leaving behind those people who for whatever reason couldn't bail, or worse, didn't have the skills to go elsewhere. That's not to say that all the good people left and all the bad stayed but the proportions changed more than they would if the pay scale was better.

When I first started in software development I worked for a while at a place where one department hired history or French majors, sent them to some "90-day wonder" computer courses, and paid them 2/3 of industry scale. People who wanted to get into the industry lined up, got their stripes and quit. Turnover in that group ran in the 30-40% range most years. Problem was, their situation tainted most of the other departments even though they didn't play the same games.

Gresham's law applies to people and businesses as well as coins.

To be clear, railroad operations is just one part of SEPTA. Transit (buses, trolleys, and subway/elevated lines ) is another, much bigger part of it. They are even represented by different unions. Railroad operations employees are represented by the UTU and BLE, while transit employees are represented by TWU.

And, of course, there's management. How many management-level employees does SEPTA have? Have you ever been inside 1234 Market Street? It's a big building. How many lawyers, engineers (P.E. types, not locomotives), supervisors, etc. do they need?

March 2005, the TWU contracts will expire, and we will see once again the same negotiations on pay, benefits, and work rules. An editorial from the Delco Times (3/19/04) sums it up:

Many veteran SEPTA workers pay nothing toward the cost of health care. Retirees also retain lifetime prescription drug benefits. The company was talking about co-pays, a fact of life for many in today’s business climate.

...

Everybody has a stake in mass transit, and it appears everyone is going to have to share in the cost. Now it’s just a matter of deciding who will pay what and 12 months to figure it out.

(Source: http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?news ... 8171&rfi=8)