SEPTA Transit Strike Is Over

PHILADELPHIA - SEPTA management and transit workers announced early Monday morning that they had reached a deal to end the six-day-old transit strike in Philadelphia.

Transport Workers Union Local 234's membership is expected to soon ratify overwhelmingly the agreement its local leader held out for until 12:45 a.m. Monday.

"SEPTA representatives and union representatives signed a contract. The strike is over," Gov. Ed Rendell said, announcing the deal.

Rendell, Mayor Michael Nutter and Rep. Bob Brady met with union leadership to finalize the contract terms.

Commuter service resumed Monday morning, although ridership appeared low early on as word was slow to spread.

The union walked out last Tuesday in a dispute largely centered on pension benefits, idling city subways, trolleys and buses.

The union represents about 5,000 bus drivers, subway and trolley operators and mechanics.

"Ultimately, the system running tomorrow, the citizens and riders are the real winners here," Nutter said. "But everyone played their role, did what they were supposed to do. It was concluded, and that's the most important thing here."

"I believe Willie had a great contract negotiated Friday night," Rendell said. "There have been some slight tweaks to it, but essentially it's the same. There were some improvements, and obviously the dental was important, and we took care of that without any additional expense to the taxpayers. And I think that was important for he and his members.

"Look, it's the nature of the process," the governor added. "This is, collective bargaining is, inherently an adversarial process, and Willie was a strong adversary."

The public hadn't previously heard that the dental was a hang-up.

Friday's possible deal between the TWU and SEPTA management apparently fell apart over issues about a pension audit and how a national health care bill would affect union members.

The union originally threatened to strike while the World Series was in town a week ago, but negotiators continued bargaining after Rendell threatened "significant consequences" if that happened.

The union did go on strike hours after the series between the Phillies and Yankees shifted back to New York.

Within a day, union leader Willie Brown held a news conference, during which he said he didn't respect Nutter as a man and call him "Little Caesar."

Despite all of the angry talk at the start of the strike and all of the angst over a supposed hand-shake agreement that somehow slipped through negotiators' fingers on Friday, it was all happy, all friendly all congratulatory after midnight Monday.

A Fox 29 News camera was there as the first buses drove out of SEPTA's Frankford depot around 4 a.m.

In the early going Monday, riders were nowhere to be found at bus stops and in stations as people seemed to be just waking to the news.

And there were, of course, some changes from the normal schedule as service was ramped back up. Routes 10, 11, 13, 34 and 36 were initially restored to 40th and Market streets on diversion, SEPTA officials reported. Other delays occurred because drivers were given 24 hours to report.

SEPTA's Regional Railroad has been running throughout the strike because those workers are represented by a different union. But that rail system experienced problems of its own related to the strike -- most notably heavier ridership -- and those that officials said were not strike-related, such as a train fire and the death of an employee on the tracks.