SEPTA workers approve five-year contract

With none of the dramatics that marked their bitter, six-day strike against SEPTA, transit workers voted overwhelmingly yesterday to approve a new five-year contract.

Members of Transport Workers Union Local 234, which represents 5,100 drivers, operators, and mechanics, voted 2,806-242 in favor, the union said.

All members of the union will get $1,250 bonuses in the first year for ratifying the agreement. The contract also calls for a 2.5 percent pay raise in the second year, and a 3 percent raise in each of the final three years. It increases workers' contributions to the pension fund from the current 2 percent to 3 percent, and increases the maximum pension to $30,000 a year from the current $27,000.

The SEPTA governing board will soon conduct a special meeting to approve the contract, agency spokesman Richard Maloney said yesterday.

He said the gathering would be held before the board's regularly scheduled Dec. 17 meeting to permit payment of the first-year bonuses.

The work stoppage began at 3 a.m. on Nov. 3 and left city bus, trolley, and subway riders scrambling for alternatives. Many crowded onto jammed Regional Rail trains; others were stranded with no way to get to work.

The lack of warning infuriated riders, and union president Willie Brown later acknowledged that the timing had been bad.

Many commuters who rely on SEPTA to keep their jobs complained that the union showed a callous disregard for other workers trying to survive in hard economic times.

"I understand I'm the most hated man in Philadelphia right now," Brown said during the strike. "I have no problem with that."

Brown also refused to negotiate with Mayor Nutter, calling him "Little Caesar."

The strike ended as suddenly as it began when union leaders joined SEPTA officials about 12:45 a.m. Nov. 9 outside the Center City office of Gov. Rendell, who brokered the deal a day after he said he was giving up on efforts to settle the strike.