Ronnie Polaneczky: Frustrated commuters deride strikers

FOR TWO YEARS, David Grooms put up with what he says was routinely nasty customer service from SEPTA, because it beat driving into work from his home in Lansdowne.

But last Tuesday, waiting at a crowded bus stop with other confused commuters who didn't know that SEPTA workers had walked off the job at 3 a.m., he became incensed. Not just for himself, but for the bawling mother standing next to him, who didn't know how she'd get her kid to school and herself to her job.

"It was just another example of how little SEPTA cares about the people who pay them," he said. "It was the last straw."

So he has started a Facebook group called "Boycott SEPTA" that as of this writing has 182 members. Grooms vows never to ride SEPTA again, and he kind of hopes the rest of us won't, either, if we can help it.

"I hope we can start ride-sharing groups," he said, although right now, he admits, "Boycott SEPTA" seems to be more a place where people are venting spleen over how much they detest the transit agency and the people who work for it.

Grooms is one of nearly 200 readers who contacted me in response to my column yesterday about the arrogance of SEPTA workers having made their private employment grievances our public nightmare.

Most readers were disgusted that union members wouldn't sign a good contract, which offered guaranteed raises and no increases in health-care costs, when so many people are unable to find jobs.

"I am one of many people who have been out of work for over 6 months," wrote J. Cullen. "I did not get an increase in my salary for two years prior to my layoff."

Added reader Rob Todd: "The sense of entitlement from these people is nauseating!!! I hope they get Ronald Reagan'd, circa early '80s - fired. Bring in new people who appreciate gainful employment, where job security and fair compensation is valued and not taken for granted."

And many had tales that ought to make Transport Workers Union Local 234 President Willie Brown hang his head in shame.

Reader Sue Gill told me that her daughter, a radiation therapist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, has been worried sick about cancer patients who've been unable to get to the hospital this week for treatment.

"Some of them need 40 days of radiation in a row. If they miss a day, it really sets them back," said Gill. "They're not just being inconvenienced by the strike; their lives are being threatened."

Others are being kept from jobs that are desperately needed, noted Laura Haskins of the Lighthouse, a nonprofit that, among other services, helps the disenfranchised to find work.

"A few of our clients were to begin a job on the very day of the strike, and now they fear that they will lose the position simply because they can't get to the job," she told me.

Pu
 
blic-transit riders weren't the only ones put out by that 3 a.m. walkout. I heard that most rank-and-file SEPTA employees were surprised by it, too.

"Most of the drivers I know, my brother included, didn't even know about it," wrote a former SEPTA employee who still follows the union machinations with a close eye. "My brother showed up for work."

He stood behind the union, though, which is more than a 24-year SEPTA employee whom I'll call "Wally" is doing (I'm protecting his anonymity here).

Wally couldn't believe that his union went on strike.

"Brown is grossly out of his league," he told me, "and it looks to me as if we're on strike because he had a temper tantrum with people who were confusing him with facts and reasoned arguments. He does not have the education or the background to lead a union in the 21st century, but there is nothing we in the union can do about it.

"Our union leaders are drawn from section officers who are often the loudest whiners and screamers and the least reasonable of our members. The next union election will be very interesting to watch, but the competent need not apply."

Some readers scolded me for not showing solidarity with the TWU, given that I belong to a union myself.

I apologize for the lack of empathy my column might have incited among the good citizens of the Delaware Valley.

So please allow me, dear readers, to provide you a way to let TWU leadership know how much you have supported the union's right to hold us hostage while they work out their job woes.

Call 215-972-4140.

Ask for Willie.

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/polaneczky. Read Ronnie's blog at http://go.philly. com/ronnieblog.