Web Search powered by YAHOO! SEARCH

options

READER FEEDBACK

SEPTA strikers, how dare you!

By Ronnie Polaneczky
Philadelphia Daily News

Daily News Columnist

YO, SEPTA WORKERS.

As a fellow trade-union member, I'm having a big problem with you, solidarity-wise.

Not only is your strike strangling the city - keeping kids from school, people from jobs, patients from doctors' appointments - but it's a thumbed-nose to something for which most folks reading this paper would give their back molars: The promise of a paycheck for the next 60 months.

I'm thinking about the 400 employees at Crozer Chester Medical Center who lost their jobs this year. And the 22 staffers axed last Thursday at Drinker Biddle & Reath. And the Comcast employees who learned on Wednesday that the cable giant plans to pink-slip a number of workers, even though the company is enjoying a fabulously profitable year.

Hell, it's a promise I wish we had right here at the Daily News.

We've lost dozens of staffers in recent years, and the paper's possible demise is a topic of endless speculation.

So let me get this straight: Unemployment is rampant in this region, and your union actually chose to strike rather than continue hammering out the details of your already excellent jobs? Jobs that we, the transit-dependent public, need you to perform so that our own financially teetering lives don't crash and burn?

Where do you people get off?

Your good jobs would only get better with SEPTA's opening offer - a deal that Gov. Rendell rightly described as "sensational." The contract calls for you to pocket a signing bonus of $1,250, just for agreeing to the damn thing. It would give you a 2.5 percent raise next year. And a 3 percent annual increase for three years after that.

The proposal doesn't require you to donate even a nickel more to your health-care plan. Do you have any clue how sweet that is?

It even comes with an offer to increase pension contributions to 11 percent over the next five years. I know, your leadership disputes that figure. But at least you still have a pension to argue about. Not everyone is so lucky.

Yet you looked at all of this and said, "Let's walk out."

So, please, tell me: When you're behind the wheel of the bus, what planet are you driving on?

This is the part of my rant where I think I'm supposed to toss you a bone. To concede that interacting with the city's rough citizenry can be punishing to even the sunniest people in the transit business. That moving millions of people from here to there is so much more grueling than we could ever know.

Sorry, no bone.

Your 3 a.m. walk-off, which left tens of thousands of us stranded without notice, was outrageous. It cemented the worst belief about SEPTA workers - that you hold us, the people who pay your wages through taxes and the fare box, in contempt. Good luck trying to improve that image once the wheels start rolling again.

Sadly, your strike also unfairly strengthens the perception that all unions are as entitled and grabby as you are. Your president, Willie Brown, actually said, "We agreed not to strike during the World Series. We took people to the game because we are professionals. Now it's time to reward us."

Reward you? For doing the jobs that we pay among the highest fares in the country for you to do?

Can we wipe your noses for you while we're at it?

You also have a bizarre notion that you're in some sort of profit-sharing relationship with SEPTA. Brown has pointed out that, while the economy is doing badly, SEPTA is not. Ridership is up, and the agency has gotten money from state and stimulus funds. So, your warped thinking goes, you're entitled to a fatter slice of the pie.

News flash: It's not your pie. It's ours. If SEPTA is flush, it's incumbent on the agency to plow that money back into new equipment, improved routes and - here's a fun idea - customer-service training for workers whose job protection keeps them from caring whether they snarl or smile at us.

Are there some outstanding issues you have with SEPTA management? No doubt. All grown-ups have issues with the boss. Unlike you, though, what we don't have is the ability to hold a city hostage for as long as our tantrum lasts.

So, please, get back to work. And admit that your negotiating hasn't been just about getting more for yourselves.

It's been about getting more - much, much more - than the rest of us.

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.

Comments

Posted 03:34 AM, 11/06/2009

Jp85

They do give unions a bad name. They should elect the smartest not the loudest to head the union.

Posted 03:59 AM, 11/06/2009

xthepeanutx

Greedy, greedy, greedy.

Posted 04:01 AM, 11/06/2009

ArseoleChris

Wonderful Article Ronnie... Lovely Work.... Now A Song Parody to the tune of Jim Croce's "Bad Leroy Brown" Bad Bad Wille Brown, Most Hated Man in The Whole Damn Town, Resembles Old King Kong, Meaner Than A Philly Cop.. As Kissel from The Jerky Boys Would Say!! BACK TO WORK.....

Posted 04:11 AM, 11/06/2009

mikeyg

Excellent article.

Posted 04:34 AM, 11/06/2009

MBW

Well said!

Posted 05:19 AM, 11/06/2009

raoulwell

Right on, Ronnie! You listening, Mr. Brown? Aside from your members there is hardly anyone on the other side one bit concerned about your needs. I wish Nutter and Rendell had the huevos to get rid of every one of your ungrateful behinds and replace you with men and women who would bring professionalism to their tasks, unlike the majority of fat behind chicken wing gnawing people you have working in your cashier booths.

Posted 05:47 AM, 11/06/2009

FJG JR

I disagree. The teacher's strike, and children don't have school, and parents have to get sitters. So why is it any different to thro stones at them. Mr. Brown, you do what you have to do, for your families first, not Ronnie and yuppies.

Posted 06:39 AM, 11/06/2009

phillypapers

Trendy misinformation. Well twisted but shameful.

Comment removed.

Posted 06:45 AM, 11/06/2009

blackknight

Excellent article and it's hard to dispute the facts of the offer. Septa is terrorizing the city and holding it hostage. I would not negotiate with that arrogant, overpaid Brown and give him a counter offer. End the strike and resume service by next Friday the 13th or we will start hiring replacement drivers and bring in drivers from the burbs while seriously considering privatization and putting all of their miserable, overpaid, entitled arses in the street. Then let them see how things are in reality where benefits costs employees, there are little to no raises for years in a row and companies stopped contributing to 401K plans.

Posted 06:48 AM, 11/06/2009

lupulin

Maybe some of the folks who are out of work would like a new career in the public transportation industry...

Posted 06:52 AM, 11/06/2009

Lil Bobby

The teachers shouldnt be allowed to strike either. I do find it amusing that the complaint about concerns getting babysitters, and not the fact that their children are losing valuable education time..

Posted 06:57 AM, 11/06/2009

crqvindee

You have a right to disagree FJG JR, but I also have the right to call you an idiot. Knowing what is happening to hard working people getting the shaft from SEPTA instead of a helping hand while they negotiate they prefer to "act like kidnappers holding the city for ransom". I suggested elsewher11e that the mayor and govenor start using school buses with security for transportation. The H311 with SEPTA. Let them wait forever.