Transit police union and SEPTA have a tentative deal on a 3-year contract

The union representing transit police and SEPTA reached a tentative deal on a new three-year contract Wednesday that includes a 12% raise and avoids a possible strike during the region’s summer of big events.

Officers had been working without a contract since March 31, and the police union said on June 4 it was willing to walk off the job if there was no progress in talks. Leaders said the two sides were at an impasse.

Since then, negotiators traded new proposals and met several times.

Members of Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109 are scheduled to hold a ratification vote on the agreement Thursday, with SEPTA’s board scheduled to consider it next week.

“SEPTA believes the agreement is fair to our hard-working Transit Police officers and responsible to the fare-paying riders and taxpayers who fund the authority,” spokesperson Andrew Busch said in a statement.

“I can confidently say that a strike has been averted at this time,” FOTP Lodge 109 president Omari Bervine said in an interview.

He credited SEPTA general manager Scott A. Sauer with getting talks moving.

“We were able to actually sit down to direct talks, with the general manager [involved], and that was instrumental in getting a tentative deal worked out,” Bervine said.

A 12% raise is in line with the deal Transport Workers Union Local 234 received in its contract agreement last year. SEPTA engages in pattern bargaining, using contracts with TWU Local 234 as a guidepost.

Officers would get a 5% pay hike in the first year and 3½% in each of the next two years, according to sources familiar with the agreement. They also would receive a $2,500 signing bonus.

Officers are scheduled to get the first installment of the pay bump on June 28, if the contract is ratified and approved. Normally, pay increases for transit police did not kick in until the next anniversary of the start of the contract year — in this case, April 1, 2027.

Lodge 109 has pressed to change the timing so members would start receiving raises as soon as possible after the signing of an agreement, as happens with other SEPTA unions.

The union represents 203 rank-and-file officers who patrol SEPTA’s stations and transit vehicles across its five-county service area.

Bervine had offered to waive the right to strike if SEPTA voluntarily agreed to submit their dispute to binding arbitration.

Most union-represented police officers in Pennsylvania can use binding arbitration, which involves an independent arbiter deciding the final terms of a contract. In turn, those officers are barred from striking.

But state law does not allow transit police and some other state law enforcement officers to use binding arbitration.

Bervine said there was no agreement to include binding arbitration in the contract. There is proposed legislation in Harrisburg to extend it to officers employed by state agencies like SEPTA. “Hopefully, common sense will prevail,” he said.

Union and SEPTA negotiators met on Tuesday and Thursday last week and exchanged new proposed contract language. They met for a third time Saturday.

The union has exercised its right to strike before.

In December 2023, the transit officers union went on strike for three days seeking wage increases matching those given to Transport Workers Union Local 234 and other SEPTA employee unions.

In 2019, transit officers walked out for six days, in part over whether members could review body-camera footage before filing incident reports. They struck in 2012 over a 15-cent difference between the FOTP’s demand and SEPTA’s offer for an increase in the hourly rate that members received for annual recertification as police officers.