The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.24           June 22, 1998 
 
 
Philadelphia Strikers Keep SEPTA Transit Shut Down  

BY PETE SEIDMAN
PHILADELPHIA - The 5,300 members of the Transport Workers Union Local 234 here won a round June 9 in their strike against the city government and transit authorities.

Mayor Edward Rendell and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) announced that day they were dropping threats to resume passenger service using administrative personnel on the struck Broad Street and Market-Frankford subway lines. The TWU strike has shut down these lines as well as all other rail, trolley, and bus service in SEPTA's City Transit Division since June 1.

SEPTA's climbdown came after members of the United Transportation Union (UTU), who represent conductors, and Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE) refused to cross TWU picket lines at four SEPTA suburban commuter lines. These lines, whose ridership has increased by some 50 percent since the strike began, have taken some pressure off SEPTA management by providing alternative service for some passengers.

At the Roberts Avenue Yard, 50 UTU and BLE members declined to cross an eight-person TWU picket line that had been put up at 4:00 a.m. on June 8. A boss who came out and ordered them to cross was answered by a unionist who pushed his way through the crowd to insist, "We decline to cross a picket line." Cheers went up from the BLE and UTU workers each time a car turned away as it came upon the TWU's picket line.

By that afternoon, however, U.S. district court judge Eduardo Robreno ordered the engineers back to work.

Union solidarity was "tremendous," TWU train operator Jeannie Robinson told the Militant at the Upper Darby station picket line the next day. "It showed that we're united and that we're not going to buckle."

Since the strike began, SEPTA has waged a high-pitched media campaign trying to shift public blame onto the union for the traffic jams and other strike-related inconveniences. But the employers' antilabor campaign has for the most part failed.

Militant reporters found few passengers against the strike. "With the strike, it's really hard to get around," Martin Hartley, a student who just started a job at a nursing home said as he waited for a ride. "But people need their rights." David Smith, a painter originally from Barbados, explained that he supported the strikers because "anytime a person stands up for their rights they face a problem. We have to fight against the same things back home all the time."

Strikers on the picket lines also report overwhelming support from passing motorists expressed by honks and friendly waves.

On June 8 the Philadelphia Daily News ran a phone survey indicating that 58.7 percent of the nearly 22,000 people who called in took the union's side over SEPTA's.

After more than 1,000 chanting members of TWU Local 234 packed the visitors gallery at a June 4 meeting, the City Council passed a resolution blaming SEPTA for the breakdown in negotiations and urging Comptroller Jonathan Saidel to withhold the city's $56.7 million subsidy to the authority. City Council president John Street has distanced himself from the mayor's open call to break the strike.

Some 1,500 strikers and members of other unions including the Teamsters; Communications Workers of America; American Postal Workers Union; American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; and the Health and Hospital Workers Union Local 1199, rallied here June 10 to support the SEPTA workers. AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Richard Trumka joined numerous local AFL-CIO officials on the platform.

Aurelius Noble, a union member and janitor who has not been able to get to work since the strike started, came on his own to support the TWU. "This strike is taking food off of the strikers' table just like it is taking it off mine," he said. "But what SEPTA is doing is wrong, taking away their health care and their union rights. That is why I came out here to support them today."

Pete Seidman is a member of United Auto Workers Local 2372 in Newark, Delaware; Betsy Farley, Nancy Cole, and John Staggs contributed to this article.  
 
 
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