Strike!

It looks like SEPTA might be losing some riders:

Article from the Philadelphia Inquirer

"I like it better," she said. "I hate SEPTA."

Yeah, there was a lot of traffic, but it took her 40 minutes to get to work from her home in the city's Mayfair section.

When she took the bus and the Market-Frankford El, the commute was 50 minutes.

As long as her colleague's husband is willing to drive - even after the strike - she's going to carpool "and not support SEPTA anymore."

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/b ... 053593.htm

Call this a technicality, but it was the SEPTA control center that officially told the operators to walk off the job. I was on the last Rt 73 bus when the call came over the radio. Is that the company's job to tell the operators that a "work stoppage is now in effect"?

glennk419 wrote:The last year I had full company paid medical benefits was 1993. It's time to wake up and smell the roses, folks!

Kinda a step in the wrong direction, don't you think? I still get full benefits, and I don't think that's a direction we should be moving away from -- for ANYONE.

here here, i second that.

ryanov wrote:Kinda a step in the wrong direction, don't you think? I still get full benefits, and I don't think that's a direction we should be moving away from -- for ANYONE.

That sounds all well and good, but where does the money come to pay for it? Health care costs are going up, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I am under the impression that SEPTA is required to get 50% of its income in the form of farebox recovery. If the costs go up, how can current service levels be maintained? How high do you want the costs to go before you finally admit that corporations (both public and private) cannot shoulder the burden alone? If SEPTA caves in on this, we will see service cuts and fare increases, no doubt about it. And you know what service cuts mean--driver layoffs. Of course, those will only be the junior union members, who aren't really served by the union, so no big deal, right? Or is it possible that the union isn't really operating in its members' best interests, let alone the best interests of their friends and families.

If SEPTA caves, we're all going to have to pay the price. I really don't think that 5% (what is that again, $5 to $15 per week?) is that much too ask, especially if it is coupled with pay raises. True, the union has "paid" for its health care benefits by forgoing raises in the past, but that only paid for them over those contracts. It's a moot argument now. Plus, with employee contributions to their health care, it might discourage indescretionary use (abuse?) of the benefits, which could lower the costs over all. Fair is fair, so I would insist that the same contributions be made by management, though.

I'm not anxious to see headways and fares increase, though. And why don't the TWU and SEPTA look at how other systems are dealing with this. The ATU in LA went on strike in 2003, but otherwise, other systems have kept running, even those that are allowed to strike.

Thoughts?

jfrey40535 wrote:Call this a technicality, but it was the SEPTA control center that officially told the operators to walk off the job. I was on the last Rt 73 bus when the call came over the radio. Is that the company's job to tell the operators that a "work stoppage is now in effect"?

Well, they had to be informed somehow, and Control Center is the fastest way to do it....

And the comments of the rider quoted in the original post should come as no shock; transit systems, SEPTA included, always lose some riders after a strike. In fact, ridership on Red Arrow alone STILL has not rebounded to pre-1986 levels (the year they were out for 61 days). Of course now, simple attrition, changing route patterns, and suburban sprawl have added to that factor.

I hate to break the news, but regardless of the results of the contract talks, a raise in the fares is in the near future. Without the dedicated funding, which is not guaranteed that they'll get, service cuts are still a very real possibility. There are forces on both sides of the healthcare contributions issue. Unfortunately, the majority of people in our country do pay contributions, some much more than others. Be that as it may, it isn't necessarily the case that everyone should have to pay because others do. 'I have to pay and so do you,' is a childish argument, and a feable one. Why isn't the public so animate that politicians contribute to their healthcare, given that the PUBLIC subsidizes their healthcare benefits for them. Isn't our economy running at a deficit as we speak, with an administration that argues that the economy is as strong as ever. I said it before, I'll say it again, Harrisburg could have prevented all of this from happening long ago. OUR ELECTED OFFICIALS, WHO WORK FOR US, DECIDED TO GO ON EARLY THANKSGIVING RECESS. They had an opportunity to provide a financial resource for a PUBLIC necessity and they chose not to. But, behold, we have two new stadiums in Philadelphia (thanks in part to local and state $$$). We had the state takeover the Pennsylvania Convention Center and the Philadelphia Parking Authority. Let's blame EVERYONE who is responsible for this mess: SEPTA, TWU, UTU, GOVERNOR ED, and the rest of our ELECTED OFFICIALS.

Whovian - yes, yes, and yes again. It seems that all parties are content to let SEPTA rot - its infrastructure, its management, its workers - while the riders who need its services can go whistle. I'm not sure if they feel that it's such a mess that anyone who actually does anything will be held accountable, or that they're content to point fingers so it looks as if they're doing something when they're not, or what.

SEPTA is like a sort-of joke I saw about a town with a damaged bridge. The right-wing types said it was everybody's individual responsibility to avoid the broken part and it was your own fault if you got hurt. The lefties wanted every car in town to have special warning and safety devices installed to protect drivers from the bridge. The injury lawyers and car repair shops wanted the broken section left as-is because it was important to their business, and so on and so on.

BUT NOBODY WAS WILLING TO JUST GO OUT AND FIX THE #%! BRIDGE!!!

pennengineer wrote:

ryanov wrote:Kinda a step in the wrong direction, don't you think? I still get full benefits, and I don't think that's a direction we should be moving away from -- for ANYONE.

That sounds all well and good, but where does the money come to pay for it? Health care costs are going up, and, correct me if I'm wrong, but I am under the impression that SEPTA is required to get 50% of its income in the form of farebox recovery. If the costs go up, how can current service levels be maintained?

Not by screwing the workers. I don't care how it's done, I can't see any good reason that they should be the ones paying for our service.

The healtcare issue is one that can be argued for ages. It seems as though the majority of folks feel that they SHOULD contribute to their healthcare. God bless them! Its really a shame that people have just accepted having to give up something as fundamental as a sound healthcare package because of its OVERINFLATED costs. The HMO's have such a powerful lobby in Washington, its really a disgrace. Sadly, I think the TWU will end up conceding in this uphill battle. There is simply too much animosity from the politicians and the riders for them to prevail. I hope that when my children are in the workforce, that they won't have to choose between a doctor's visit and a paycheck the way things are going.

whovian wrote:The HMO's have such a powerful lobby in Washington, its really a disgrace.

Well then you'd better invest all your savings in Aetna stock and stock of other managed care companies, so you can get your share of those huge profits you're so sure exist.

The main reason health plan costs keep increasing is that for a variety of reasons (overall aging of society, new technologies, defensive medicine...), Americans consume more health care services each year. Our health care system is not set up to control people's demand for services very well.

I guess that would seem a more pragmatic reason for the inflated healthcare premiums. I would argue that its more an issue of supply and demand, just like everything else. And if one argues that America's aging population is part of the problem, then why hasn't anyone in Congress or in the White House taken more HUMANE steps to try and quell that particular problem. Uncle Sam, and his nephew G.W. Bush, have all but strangled medicare and medicaid, and they have given the US prescription drug companies the best protective tariff that they could ask for. One argues that they don't have a powerful lobby, think again. The aging of America is nothing new, I'm sorry. America found a way to fund current war EFFORTS (plural), America found a way to aid victims of various natural disasters overseas (but dropped the ball initially at home), and America found a way to cut taxes (overwhelmingly in favor of the affluent). The funds are there, or at least they were before G.W.'s administration came about with an overly generous tax cut (you know, surplus to deficit in a very short couple of years); the interest is not. There are other places in the world that if you go to the hospital, the first question is not, "do you have medical insurance?" I'd rather pay higher taxes for decent medical care than get paid peanuts for lackluster or no care. That's another argument for another forum, but please don't sell me that. HMO's and prescription drug companies make money hand over fist. I will admit that company's and other entities such as SEPTA have incurred higher costs do to skyrocketing healthcare costs, but are those cost INFLATED by the healtcare providers? Ever heard of price gouging?

And just to throw my hat into the ring: I had fully employer-paid health care until last year; now we pay a percentage. I can understand paying a slice of healthcare, but NOT at the expense of screwing the union workers.

So while I don't see the TWU or UTU coming out of this with fully-paid benefits, I would hope that SEPTA comes up with a better proposal than some past offers....

OK, this is gonna be a post about health care and not transit, so I'll make my points and then move back to the rails ...

The part of me that just saw his healthcare premiums go up enough to wipe out every $ and then some of any raise for next year says yeah, these guys should be paying for their premiums too. But right now everyone is staring at the same leak while arguing over whose end of the boat is sinking.

Employer-paid healthcare is pretty much unique to the U.S. It got its start during WWII when wage controls made it difficult/impossible for companies to hang onto workers by increasing salaries. There was no corresponding limit on benefits so they started paying for health insurance, and Congress further sweetened the pot by letting the companies deduct their part of the premiums. So we've now got a fragmented system where each co. has its own set of rules that have to be funded and administered separately. Each employer has an incentive to try to cost-shift by getting someone else (a spouse's employer, Medicaid, whatever) to bear some of their expenses, so you have a huge shell game going on that forces the insurance companies to expend megatons of effort coordinating among competing customers. They too try to cost-shift by pushing more and more of the coordination work back on the doctors and hospitals. I recently saw an article (WSJ, I think, hardly a bastion of left-wing looniness) that estimated around 30% of all the healthcare spending in the U.S. is now being eaten up in administrative costs alone.

Compound that with the distortions caused by linking healthcare to one's employer - people who won't / can't switch jobs because they'll lose coverage, people who use the emergency room as their primary caregiver, etc. etc. and you have a real mess. In fact, there was a joint study done last year by two of the top benefits firms in the country that concluded the current system will collapse of its own inefficiency before the end of the decade.

So where am I headed ? I'll duck the flames that're gonna come my way, but why not try some sort of universal coverage that's available to everybody regardless of employer? Yes, it still has to be paid for and will be more visible because it will come out of general tax revenue, but the tradeoff is that those costs will no longer be a line item in each employer's budget. It wouldn't have to be government-run, just something that each company would make available to all customers (hey, kind of like a PCC car, right - many builders, one basic design?) It's portable, like a 401K, so you can change jobs or move to a different state and still own your insurance. Since it's universal, your doctor doesn't have to spend money for people to do nothing but shift paper around from one policy to another. And it's no more "socialized medicine" than the postal service is "socialized mail".

All right, time to get back on the train.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A seven-day strike that shut down Philadelphia's buses, subways and trolleys ended on Monday after all-night negotiations led to an agreement on health-care coverage for workers, officials said.

The strike affected 400,000 commuters in the fifth-largest U.S. city.

Contract talks between Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, and two unions went all day on Sunday and overnight, with an agreement reached early Monday morning, SEPTA spokesman Jim Whitaker said.

Under the deal, union members will get a 3 percent salary increase and contribute 1 percent of their salaries to help SEPTA offset soaring health-care costs, Whitaker said.

SEPTA had rejected a similar offer on health care a week ago, union officials said at the time.

What a wasted opportunity... They could have just hired a bunch of part-time workers and busted the union completely...