Eric Mustin

U.S. PIRG

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Association Workers Union has,

once again, betrayed the confidence of the city and leveraged the public welfare by
striking over contract negotiations.  And while the press and politicians have vilified
Transport Workers Union Local 234 for their lack of concern for the city that they serve,
the fact is that the union was well within their legal rights to strike. They had been
ignored by their management, at work without their new contract, and misled about their
pension plan funding. The underlying issue, as highlighted in the November 10th article
“How Pa. Can Prevent The Next SEPTA strike”, is not the actions of the unions, but the
lack of action by the Pennsylvania State Legislature. The Pa. Legislature needs to stop
using Pinkerton era tactics to skew public opinion against a workers union, and start to
address Philadelphia’s underfunded transit system in order to “create more competition,
improve service, and lower prices (Anderson).”
The crux of this problem rests on the fact that Pennsylvania is one of only 10
states that allow public employees to strike. As one of the oldest and most well organized
transport workers unions in the country, Transport Worker Union Local 234 has a history
of exercising their right to strike on a regular basis, “nine times since 1975(Anderson).”
Pennsylvania Lawmakers have settled these by increasing local taxes, highway tolls, and
state subsidies to placate union demands. This most recent case proved the trend, as
Governor Ed Rendell used seven million dollars in statewide PENNDOT economic
development money to quickly settle the strike. But not everything is a quick fix. The
long term problems, public transportation costs and efficiency, are being ignored.
Pa. Legislature can address these problems by opening SEPTA up to a wider
marketplace. This can be done in two ways.
 First, appropriating state subsidies “toward vouchers for low-income
riders(Anderson)” would grow the customer base of SEPTA to represent a larger
proportion of the city.
 Second, investing in a major transit project, like the extension of the subway line
into Northeast Philadelphia, would better account for the working class in the
marketplace. This proposal serves an area where 25% of “residents don’t own a
car and rely on the bus system for travel needs(Getting on Track, 14).” A voucher
program would compliment this investment.
The benefits of such actions are clear. Decreasing state assistance and “increasing
their reliance on fares would discourage inefficiency, as riders would pay the cost of
transit and therefore demand better, more efficient service, reducing waste and keeping
costs down(Anderson).” This is a system that is not broken; it is just slanted toward
outmoded organizational systems and antiquated technology. It is slanted away from the
lower class.  It is up to future minded lawmakers to even out the field.

Works Cited
Anderson, Katrina, and Elizabeth Bryan. "How Pa. can prevent the next SEPTA
strike." The Philadelphia Inquirer 10 Nov. 2009.
<http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion
/Inquirer/20091110_How_Pa__can_prevent_the_next_SEPTA_strike.html>.

Getting on Track: Good Investments for Pennsylvania's Public Transit System.

Rep. PennPIRG Education Fund, Sept. 2008. Web. <http://cdn.publicinterestnet
work.org/assets/Xrw9Uz 8giVpMSJSz9uL0dg/Getting-on-Track.pdf>.