TWU and SEPTA reach a deal on two-year contract, averting strike
Gov. Josh Shapiro helped break an impasse in talks.
Transport Workers Union Local 234 and SEPTA reached a tentative agreement on a new two-year contract on Monday after Gov. Josh Shapiro helped break an impasse in talks.
Members of the local’s executive board approved the deal. It must be ratified by the membership. SEPTA’S board of directors is scheduled to consider the agreement on Dec. 18.
The news marks a dramatic pivot. Negotiations looked grim at the end of last week and a strike was possible.
“Patience was growing thin and management seemed unhurried. Usually, we would have been locked into a hotel until we got this done,” TWU Local 234 President Will Vera said.
On Friday, Vera declared he was out of patience at what the union saw as SEPTA’s intransigence on key demands and threatened to lead members in a walkout.
Late Sunday afternoon, Shapiro’s staff began a met with union leaders and SEPTA senior managers in the governor’s Philadelphia office.
Both sides credited Shapiro’s intervention for enabling them to make progress.
“The Governor and his people got key people from both sides in the same room last night, stopped the run-around, got promises from both sides and we reached a deal,” Vera said.
Members will receive an across the board 3.5% raise in each year of the contract, as well as an increased pension benefit during the duration of the deal, as well as changes in work rules and an increase in night-differential pay.
The union’s push for an increase in pensions and SEPTA’s proposal for union members to pay a greater share of the cost of their healthcare coverage had emerged as perhaps the biggest obstacles.
TWU Local 234 represents about 5,000 bus, subway, and trolley operators, mechanics, cashiers, maintenance people, and custodians, primarily in the city. It is SEPTA’s largest bargaining unit and the current contract expired Nov. 7.
A work stoppage would have brought chaos to a mass transit system that carries a weekday average of 790,000 riders.
This is a developing story and will be updated.