...STRIKE! You're out (and on foot)!

The three-year itch is nearly back to plague all of us. Last I heard, TWU indicated its willingness to walk out next Monday. Has anyone else heard additional info about the current state of the contract negotiations?

Don't forget that the other unions' time is up in the weeks just after next Monday. Relief from a City Transit Division strike may be short-lived.

I think the region has come full circle since the early 1960s strikes that made folks willing to have SEPTA created. Anyone up for an anti-SEPTA?

Just how close is it to the end of the contract for the regional rail employees? I shudder to think of what my commute would be like if I had to start driving into Philly.

One of the measures that I use to judge the effictiveness of the SEPTA management is with regards to negotiating with labour. They are terrible at it. Sure, a solution is always arrived at, but not without a strike . Right now, they're 5/15 for negotiating without screwing the riding public (and the non-riding public; all those people still have to go to work...they DRIVE). That's 2/3 of the time! I guess they figure they're batting .333 which may be good in baseball, but this ain't baseball.

I realize there are two sides bargining...there's more to it than my gross simplification, but still, the numbers are sickening.

Also, I would like to see management keep _some_ service in town running! How come management doesn't train some of its own to operate the subway and the el to provide some amount of service in the city? SEPTAs contingincy plan is nothing at all!

There are very real economic issues at play here, and I'd like to see a resolution before a walkout. If the two sides can keep bargining, can they keep working under the old contract?

You're kidding. They don't have a plan at all? So, how are all the bus/subway/EL partons that pack those modes supposed to get to where they are going if they strike?

R3 Rider wrote:Just how close is it to the end of the contract for the regional rail employees? I shudder to think of what my commute would be like if I had to start driving into Philly.

Regional Rail employees (engineers, conductors, and related operating crafts) are covered under Federal regulations governing railroads. As such, they (like the freight railroads) are forbidden to strike.

Any such walkout by railroad employees would he ended by court injunction within hours, if not minutes.

Joe

^Then what other unions were Franklin referring to?

[quote="R3 Rider"]^Then what other unions were Franklin referring to?[/quote]

The other unions would include the one for Red Arrow and for the Frontier Divisions.


PS: With SEPTA's stance on unions the way it is, they better be prepared to kiss their jobs goodbye, as they almost got replaced with private bus operators employing all part-timers a few years ago.

Looks as SEPTA has posted a handy dandy guide to 'help you get around during service stoppage' on their website.

... What it really ought to do is point people in the direction of the nearest car dealer, because this is going to kill the riders support for SEPTA.

Also, wouldn't this be DVARPs best wish in terms of getting a 'more rail' thought into Faye Moore's head?

jsc wrote:Also, I would like to see management keep _some_ service in town running! How come management doesn't train some of its own to operate the subway and the el to provide some amount of service in the city?

Because in the realm of labor relations, this is a nuclear weapon.
SEPTA threatened just this six years ago.

RDG484 wrote:PS: With SEPTA's stance on unions the way it is, they better be prepared to kiss their jobs goodbye, as they almost got replaced with private bus operators employing all part-timers a few years ago.

Um, no they didn't. There was a state senator from somewhere in central PA (I'm forgetting just who right now) who threatened to impose privatization on SEPTA some years ago, but it was nowhere near "almost."

queenlnr8 wrote:Looks as SEPTA has posted a handy dandy guide to 'help you get around during service stoppage' on their website.

... What it really ought to do is point people in the direction of the nearest car dealer, because this is going to kill the riders support for SEPTA.

Also, wouldn't this be DVARPs best wish in terms of getting a 'more rail' thought into Faye Moore's head?

No! Absolutely not! Transit strikes are bad for SEPTA and bad for the passengers on _all_ divisions.

And all the transit strikes we've had in the past haven't overcome the institutional (*) unwillingness to run the railroad as a railroad and expand the network.

Now as far as ridership, the CTD has been bled down pretty close to its captive ridership base, so recent strikes haven't reduced ridership as much as earlier ones. They still hurt ridership though--you might lose two or three percentage points, and a year or two of progress in trying to rebuild ridership.

Strikes do significantly hurt public support for SEPTA (riders and non-riders), and political support (one goes with the other). To the extent that they make legislators think any additional funding they give SEPTA is just going into TWU pockets instead of improving service, they hurt our efforts to increase SEPTA funding. TWU and its leadership are not sympathetic figures, especially the way they've conducted themselves in some past strikes.

The contingency plans offered by SEPTA are pretty much as they were the past three go-rounds. They've worked pretty well--better than anticipated in most respects. The main thing is controlling access to the RRD platforms in Center City so they do not become overcrowded, passengers aren't getting on the wrong train, and fares are collected.

*--Faye Moore is an accountant, and has little if anything to do with SEPTA's railroad phobia. That phobia has been around much longer than Moore has been GM.

It may be tilting at windmills, but I wonder what the effect would be if a number of the major businesses and institutions (e.g. hospitals, the school district, etc.) that are being hurt were to take collective action to start cleaning house.

Something like a damage suit against the state, SEPTA management and the union(s) might only be symbolic but it would put the parties on notice that the puerile game-playing has to stop. Then they could sit down and try to work out ways to get a better funding base, reform management and have less-poisonous labor relations.

Given the financial losses that each strike causes to the city, it is perplexing that no one has tried holding the guilty parties directly responsible for their failures. All that ever seems to happen is a lot of hand wringing accompanied by the usual suggestion to "seek other modes of transportation".

Sadly, a more likely outcome of any strike is the adopting by businesses of yet more "Must have own car" policies for employees.

JeffK wrote:It may be tilting at windmills, but I wonder what the effect would be if a number of the major businesses and institutions (e.g. hospitals, the school district, etc.) that are being hurt were to take collective action to start cleaning house.

Something like a damage suit against the state, SEPTA management and the union(s) might only be symbolic but it would put the parties on notice that the puerile game-playing has to stop. Then they could sit down and try to work out ways to get a better funding base, reform management and have less-poisonous labor relations.

Where's the liability, and where's the leverage the institutions have?

There's no entitlement to transportation, and no obligation on the Commonwealth (SEPTA is a state agency) to continue service once it's started. And where's the legal obligation of the TWU? It goes away when the contract expires.

Now if the institutions want to express an opinion that the trucks need to be backed up at 1234, and that the system needs more funding once management is keelhauled, that's no problem. It's just that they can't get the force of law behind it.

My only idea was that in this overly-litigious society of ours a suit, whether well-founded or not, is sometimes the only way to take a 2x4 to the mule to get its attention.

Technically government does not have any strict responsibility to provide health services, public schools or anything not especially enumerated in the law or the Constitution, but that hasn't stopped suits over school funding, youth services, etc., etc.

While I normally don't prefer "making a point"-type actions (e.g. voting for Nader) there needs to be some way to get the powers that be to wake up and, yes, back the rubbish trucks up to 1234.