Strike!

Jeff K: I think Mr. and Mrs. Clinton made a similiar proposal in their first term, and they got laughed (almost tossed) out of both houses. I agree with most aspects of your suggestion, but there is too much greed for that to ever come about. As for DUDEURSISTERSHOT, I think that SEPTA would have to Lockout the union employees if they considered doing what you've suggested, I think (i'm not entirely sure) that's the way it works, or else SEPTA would have already done just that.

The "biennial event' has 'ben celebrated', one could almost change their calendars by it.

The ghost of Michael J. Quill still rises. It doesn't say "BOO", it says "STRIKE".

I've got a question I don't recall being discussed - it seems that much of the savings SEPTA plans to get for the strike settlement comes from the state giving it some subsidy early so SEPTA could pre-pay some healtcare costs. But if that much money could be saved in such a simple way, why haven't they always done it? There's a good example of someone demonstrating ineptitude.

PARailWiz wrote:I've got a question I don't recall being discussed - it seems that much of the savings SEPTA plans to get for the strike settlement comes from the state giving it some subsidy early so SEPTA could pre-pay some healtcare costs. But if that much money could be saved in such a simple way, why haven't they always done it? There's a good example of someone demonstrating ineptitude.

Yeah, that puzzled me too, and I hope Carla Anderson of the Daily News digs further into it.

SEPTA's annual health plan premiums are in the ballpark of $100 million, yet they said they'd save something like $15 million from this prepayment deal. That's an extraordinarily high return on the money, and a high premium Independence Blue Cross is reportedly paying for the sake of its cash flow--I would think they'd have much cheaper sources for the money.

Making deals like this is actually one of the areas where SEPTA is least dysfunctional--recall the lease-leaseback deals they did to make some money transferring depreciation rights to private-sector firms. Not to mention that the CEO of IBX is civic-minded enough and aware enough of SEPTA's financial straits to make sure SEPTA knew of a payment plan that would save SEPTA significant money. So I find it hard to believe the initial reports of what happened. Either something wasn't reported right, or there actually was some money hidden away either in the SEPTA budget or the state budget to pay for this settlement, contrary to what SEPTA was saying during negotiations.

Have the Drives gone back to work yet?

Yes. Agreement was reached after a week. The union agreed to a co-pay, but smaller than originally proposed, and management will have to kick in as well.