{"id":51054,"date":"2025-12-03T13:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T13:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/51054\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T13:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T13:44:09","slug":"septa-and-union-workers-to-resume-contract-negotiations-as-strike-threat-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/51054\/","title":{"rendered":"SEPTA and union workers to resume contract negotiations as strike threat looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Contract negotiations are set to resume Wednesday between SEPTA and the union representing thousands of workers, more than three weeks after the union voted to authorize a strike<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Transport Workers Union Local 234, which represents 5,000 subway, trolley and bus operators and mechanics, is scheduled to meet with SEPTA at 10 a.m.<\/p>\n

The union has been working without a contract since Nov. 7. Sticking points of the current negotiations include better sick pay for workers and a two-year contract, instead of just one.<\/p>\n

If a deal can’t be met, John Samuelsen, international president of TWU, warned that a strike could “shut Philly down.”<\/p>\n

“We all authorize a strike,” SEPTA body mechanic Lyle Smith said last month. “If it happens, it happens. Sorry for the public, but we gotta do what we gotta do for our families.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, funding and reliability challenges continue to loom large over SEPTA. Its trolley tunnel<\/a> is scheduled to stay shut down through the end of the week for repairs, while Regional Rail lines<\/a> continue to see delays because of federally mandated inspections<\/a> and repairs on its\u00a0Silverliner IV rail cars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

SEPTA was originally given until Friday, Dec. 5 to install thermal detection systems on the cars, but told CBS News Philadelphia Wednesday morning that the agency won’t meet that deadline because of a supply shortage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We expect 20-30 cars will still need to be completed,” said SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch.<\/p>\n

However, Busch said SEPTA won’t be penalized by the Federal Railroad Administration.<\/p>\n

Later this week, SEPTA will receive a delivery of rail cars loaned from Maryland Area Rail Commuter<\/a> to help fill out trains while the work on SEPTA’s rail cars is completed. A spokesperson told CBS News Philadelphia Amtrak is transporting the cars up to 30th Street Station from Maryland. The exact timing of the delivery is still being worked out.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced on Nov. 24 an injection of nearly $220 million in capital funds<\/a> to SEPTA for safety and infrastructure improvements. Shapiro described the cash as a short-term fix after Pennsylvania’s legislature passed a state budget<\/a> passed without additional transit funding.<\/p>\n

“I will keep fighting for additional recurring funding for mass transit in Harrisburg so that we can invest in mass transit systems, including SEPTA, all across the commonwealth,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Contract negotiations are set to resume Wednesday between SEPTA and the union representing thousands of workers, more than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[28,69,71,70,2618,29125,4398],"class_list":["post-51054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-septa","tag-septa-bus","tag-septa-train"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}