The union Web site for SEPTA workers has a brand-new feature: a second-by-second countdown to a strike.
Members of Transport Workers Union Local 234 recently announced that they will stop working at 12:01 a.m. Oct. 31 unless they can negotiate a new contract with the local transport agency.
The union's previous contract was supposed to expire March 15 this year, but two extensions pushed the termination date to June 15.
Local 234 -- which includes about 5,000 of SEPTA's 8,700 employees -- has not been under contract since that date.
Health insurance is the primary issue that is preventing settlement on a new contract.
Currently, union workers do not pay their health-care premiums.
SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney said that it is not economically feasible for this situation to continue.
"Every single business in the United States right now that offers health insurance to their employees is ... in a crisis," he said.
Maloney added that SEPTA is in the midst of a budget crisis that is "threatening the very survival of this transit authority."
The control of health-care spending, he said, will help to curb the crisis.
But union spokesman Bob Bedard said workers have already paid for these premiums as a result of a contract made 25 years ago.
"SEPTA wants to break the deal that they made with their employees ... and that was, 'If you guys take a little less in hourly wages and benefits, we will provide you with decent health-care benefits,'" Bedard said.
He added that the union is not willing to give in on this issue.
"Concede is not a word that transit workers know," he said. "We made a covenant with these people."
Both Maloney and Bedard said they hope that agreements will be reached before the strike deadline.
Bedard, however, said he is not optimistic.
"I don't own a crystal ball, but if I was going to give some advice to the citizens of southeastern Pennsylvania, I would tell them not to buy a rail pass for November because the trains probably won't be running," he said.
The entire city will likely suffer the effects of such a strike, Penn professor of Transportation Engineering Vukan Vuchic said.
"A sizable number of the people cannot go to work," he said. "Students cannot go to school, patients cannot go to their doctors. Restaurants and local businesses suffer. So there is economic impact and social impact."
Vuchic added that there are tactics besides striking that would more effectively smooth the issues between SEPTA and its employees.
"The whole situation of labor and management relations in SEPTA is archaic, and it is a disaster," Vuchic said.
He added that a strike will not benefit any party involved.
"They lose riders and lower their revenues, and of course the city loses," Vuchic said. "It is a lose-lose-lose proposition, very irrational, very backwards, and the responsibility resides with both SEPTA management and SEPTA labor unions and [with] an inactive mayor and political leaders."
