Philadelphia Transit Workers Strike

[phongn]

Surprised this wasn't already posted:

Philadelphia Transit Workers Strike

By IAN URBINA
Published: November 3, 2009

The Philadelphia transit system’s largest union went on strike early Tuesday morning, crippling travel in the city.

The strike by the union, Local 234 of the Transport Workers Union, left commuters walking, hitching rides, catching cabs or biking to work. The impact was lessened somewhat by the fact that public schools in the city were closed for teachers’ conferences.

The strike also complicated efforts by city residents to vote, and the Democratic City Committee asked Judge Lori A. Dumas-Brooks of the Court of Common Pleas to keep the polls open an hour later than usual, until 9 p.m., to accommodate voters who were affected by the lack of public transportation. Judge Dumas-Brooks denied the motion.

The strike was announced a few hours after the Phillies beat the Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series, the last game of the series to be played in Philadelphia.

The action was in defiance of Gov. Edward G. Rendell, who over the weekend had ordered the union and the transit authority, known as Septa, to remain at the bargaining table.

Willie Brown, president of Local 234, said negotiations had stalled because of disagreements over wages and workers’ rights.

Mr. Brown said that the transit authority had consistently been pulling money out of its already underfinanced pension plan and that management was unwilling to negotiate over a right for employees to choose work assignments based on seniority.

Transit workers in Philadelphia are paid an average of $52,000 a year, excluding benefits. They are seeking annual raises of 4 percent and to keep employees’ contributions toward the cost of their health care coverage at 1 percent of pay, Mr. Brown said.

Transit officials denied the accusations about raiding the pension fund, and said their offer — raises totaling 11.5 percent spread over five years with no raise in the first year, coupled with increases in workers’ pensions — was generous.

At a news conference late Monday night, Mr. Rendell called the decision to strike before dawn “irresponsible.”

Mayor Michael A. Nutter added that he was “totally outraged” that the union chose to strike in the middle of the night.

A strike against the transit authority in 2005 lasted seven days, while a 1998 transit strike lasted 40 days.

[MKSheppard]

Fire them all. If you have to bring in the National Guard to run the place, do it. This is not a optional service. People depend on them to get somewhere.

[Lonestar]

Fire them all. If you have to bring in the National Guard to run the place, do it. This is not a optional service. People depend on them to get somewhere.

Didn't Teddy do that with Coal Mines?

[General Zod]

Fire them all. If you have to bring in the National Guard to run the place, do it. This is not a optional service. People depend on them to get somewhere.

Doesn't Philadelphia have scabs for strikes like this? I know we did in Denver when we had our own transit strike a couple years ago.

[MKSheppard]

Didn't Teddy do that with Coal Mines?

New York did that in the 1970s or what when the Public Workers (Cops and Firemen) struck. They brought in the Guard to run the police force, the prisons, EMT services, with MPs on street corners.

[aerius]

So let me get this straight, their average salary is already higher than average even excluding the benefits and they still want 4% per year going into a recession where everyone else is taking pay cuts and getting laid off? I got an offer for those assholes, you get your 4% raise, but we'll fire 4% of the workforce every year. Goddamn union leachfucks. Fire'em all, hire some scabs and break the union.

[FireNexus]

This shit has had me livid for two days. Unfortunately, Philly is a decidedly union town. Firing them and hiring scabs means that every bus would have a ring of picketers around it.

[Sea Skimmer]

The best thing is SEPTA is not only bankrupt and has been for years, but what little state and federal aid it gets is decided on the fly every single year so they have absolutely zero capability to make long term fiscal plans in the first place. The union is a bunch of worthless assholes. The Septa trains BTW are on an separate union, which sure it has had strikes, but the last one was over 20 years ago. Whats more… one of the SEPTA trains had a major fire today which shut down the line for hours. The cops (bunch of union assholes too) are claiming its not suspicious but shit like that just doesn’t fucking happen. Its kind of blatant someone did it to make things worse, be they on the pay of the union or not.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD9BOVPU04

Fire them all. If you have to bring in the National Guard to run the place, do it. This is not a optional service. People depend on them to get somewhere.

To the tune of a half million people a day, including a huge number of Philadelphia public school students. The city has in fact steadily reduced what little busing it ever had to force them onto SEPTA.

[Eulogy]

How can SEPTA break up the tumour on its ass? Last time I checked, breaking unions were risky.

[FireNexus]

How can SEPTA break up the tumour on its ass? Last time I checked, breaking unions were risky.

Without a major change in the attitude towards unions in the city, they can't. This is a city where you can't build anything without almost all union labor. If you try to break the union, you'll lose.

[Sea Skimmer]

SEPTA would end up losing what pathetic subsidies it gets if it tried to strike break. Some idiots have already pushed hard to end those subsidies already even though as I said the organization has been chronically bankrupt and only provides a minimal level of service in the first place. The only option at all is to just eat the strike and wait for the public to turn on the union. As much as it will hurt people in the short term SEPTA has to do this to have any hope to avoid future strikes, and I hope to hell they have the balls. They caved way too fast on the 2005 strike.