Thaindian News

By Ranjan Bhaduri
Oct. 31, (THAINDIAN NEWS) SEPTA continues to negotiate with the union members, as the strike deadline passes at 12.01 a.m on Friday. The strike, if it takes place could bring all the transportation to a standstill, with the city buses, subways and the trolley services shutting down. 4700 people including operators, mechanics, belonging to the ‘Transport Workers Union Local 234′ could stop working in case no agreement is reached. The negotiations had earlier come to an end at 10 P.M on Thursday night, then continuing on Friday morning at the Center City Hotel, where the Mayor Nutter and the Governor Rewndell arrived at around 1 a.m. The strike is still a big possibility if the union fails to reach an agreement within time.

The mayor and the Governor had indicated earlier that a strike could be avoided but there were no proper reports, with the union still claiming that it was hard to reach an agreement without calling in a strike. Nutter said that he was ‘anticipating’ that the services would not be shut down, and that he could not imagine how much disruption the strike would bring with itself.

The strike if called would bring in a total chaos, specially with the World series games scheduled. But the Union President, Willie Brown, said that he was more certain than not, that the strike would take place. He said he had a feeling that the strike could “either be a very long one or a very short one”. He was going to ask the drivers and the officials to report in their respective vehicles, but the time frame to do that has reportedly passed. The main reason for the talk of strike remains an old one - the demand for higher wages. The union wants a raise of 18 percent from a long period of 5 years and SEPTA was prepared to offer only 9 percent.