Philadelphia: Looming Transit Workers Strike Averted Last-Minute with Governor Intervention

Read our editorial on the deepening economic crisis of imperialism here.

Transit Worker Correspondent

The Transportation Workers Union (TWU) Local 234 of Philadelphia and SEPTA, the Philadelphia-area transit agency, reached a tentative contract agreement (TA) December 8 after the intervention of Pennsylvania Governor Shapiro in the negotiations. The union called off an imminent strike upon reaching the agreement, which would have seen the 5,000-strong TWU bus drivers, train and trolley operators, and mechanics on the picket lines for the first time since 2016.

The transit workers have been working without a contract since early November when the previous contract expired, threatening to strike in particular over the company’s insistence that the workers pay more for healthcare. The last time TWU 234 struck was in 2016 for six days over similar grievances.

The rank-and-file will vote on the TA on December 17, at which point it will either be ratified or rejected, giving fresh impetus for the strike. The TA is for a two-year contract, as opposed to the last two contracts, which were one year each and pushed through just in time to avert strikes. The shorter lifetimes for these recent contracts meant more opportunity to raise grievances and mobilize for strikes—this time cut off by Governor Shapiro.

The union did not ask for the governor’s intervention, according to union statements to monopoly media; in contrast, the recently-averted strike of transit workers in New York City and Long Island, NY, came after the union brass reached out to the Trump Administration to make a close-door deal.

The TA includes a modest 3.5% wage increase each year, as well as a night differential pay increase from $0.15 an hour to $1 an hour, an increase in pension benefits, a slight increase in paid time off, and health coverage starting after 90 days of work for new hires rather than the previous staggering 15 months.

There is no language in the TA regarding “split shifts”, where drivers have two routes a day with a break in between that does not count toward wage calculations, lengthening the workday and lowering wages.

The TA also stipulates that the company is allowed to implement autonomous vehicles so long as they accept negotiations on the “impact of that decision” with the union per the union’s request. This means that the TA opens the door for workers to fight against the company imposing layoffs and tempo increases through automation, but postpones this fight until the self-driving buses are already on the way. Transit agencies like Capmetro of Austin, TX, have been bragging about testing self-driving buses to their workers while claiming without evidence that the technology is only to increase “safety” for drivers and passengers, not replace workers. Self-driving shuttle buses are already operating with passenger service on the University of Michigan campus as of August 2025.

On December 11, SEPTA announced it had reached a deal mirroring the TA with SMART Local 1594, a smaller local of transit operators in surrounding counties. The workers organized under SMART had voted to authorize a strike in November like their coworkers in Local 234.

Transit Monopolies Pit Transit Workers Against Passengers While Attacking Both

SEPTA argued through the negotiations that it was suffering from budget shortfalls due to lack of state funding, and that a strike would only add to riders’ woes, in effect pushing the issue to the workers to make up the shortfall and tighten their belts to save SEPTA.

A SEPTA bus driver spoke with The Worker in reference to the bosses pitting transit workers against passengers by blaming budget shortfalls on fare evasion: “[Passengers] don’t have the money to pay the fare…. This financial system is pulling money from the little guy, if you will, that we don’t have. I’m pretty sure if [passengers] had the money, they’d put their money into the fare.”

The driver continued: “The union is the reason why the fare is under $5. Because otherwise, SEPTA would charge everybody 10 dollars to ride the bus,” calling for free fare to help both passengers and the drivers who are forced into the role of fare enforcers, putting them in danger for the bottom line of the bosses.

Transit companies, this time with the help of union brass, also paint unsafe working conditions as the fault of passengers—mainly poor workers—rather than the service cuts in particular and accumulating poverty in general as a feature of the developing economic crisis.

The driver who spoke with The Worker summarized the rise in threatening behavior and assaults on transit workers in the country as based in service cuts—late, overcrowded buses, as was a regular feature during the austerity dress rehearsal gutting of SEPTA service in August.

In August, SEPTA cut service by 20% while the Pennsylvania state legislature squabbled over control of transit funding. The Democratic mafia succeeded in releasing an emergency $400 million from the state transportation trust fund to temporarily reverse the cuts in September.

Service cuts, fare hikes, and contract fights are ramping up in transit agencies across the country as part of the capitalist economic crisis. Meanwhile, pay is lagging behind the rising cost of living for transit workers as it is for workers across the board, while companies increase route frequency—not by adding more workers, but by reducing breaks and increasing labor tempo.

Photo: SEPTA bus. Credit: Yesums

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