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SEPTA officers’ strike to continue Monday

Body camera policy is a point of contention, and wages are a concern too.

A bundled up pedestrian walks past SEPTAÕs transit police on strike outside SEPTA Headquarters on the 1200 block of Market Street, Thursday, March 7, 2019, in Philadelphia. The men photographed preferred not to give their names.
A bundled up pedestrian walks past SEPTAÕs transit police on strike outside SEPTA Headquarters on the 1200 block of Market Street, Thursday, March 7, 2019, in Philadelphia. The men photographed preferred not to give their names.Read moreJESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer

Nearly 200 SEPTA transit officers are expected to remain on strike Monday morning.

Negotiations ended at 9 p.m. Sunday, SEPTA stated, and there were no talks yet scheduled for Monday.

Omari Bervine, the president of Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109, which represents 178 SEPTA transit officers, said progress was made Sunday but there was no agreement,

The strike began Wednesday afternoon, and since then SEPTA has been relying on 49 supervisory officers working 12-hour days and assistance from Philadelphia police and some suburban departments to patrol stations and transit vehicles. The strike has not had a significant effect on transit service so far.

The striking officers haven’t had a contract since March 2018, and negotiations had been underway since last summer. A major issue leading up to the strike was wages. SEPTA reported the average salary for a transit officers was $78,706, including overtime. Without overtime, though, transit officers make $15,000 to $20,000 less a year than their counterparts in the Philadelphia Police Department, Bervine said. He blamed the comparably lower pay to the high attrition that’s left the department of about 220 officers shy of its ideal staffing by 30 to 40.

Bervine has said wage questions were largely resolved prior to the strike’s start, but on Sunday SEPTA officials said economic concerns were again sticking points in resolving the strike.

A key point of contention, though, is SEPTA’s policies regarding body-worn cameras. Officers want the chance to view video from their cameras prior to writing a report or giving an account of an incident. SEPTA’s policy bars officers from viewing the footage until after they’ve provided an account.

“We’ve told them repeatedly that we’d agree to work within their economics if they’d agree to our language regarding reviewing of video and our other non-wage related language,” Bervine said by text Sunday night.