Fall 2001
Volume 108 - No. 3
Fall 2001
Volume 108 - No. 3
BLE Focus
SEPTA
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority, or SEPTA, was formed when Conrail's passenger operations were halted and turned over to individual agencies along the Northeast corridor. SEPTA has 202 active locomotive engineers who operate approximately 600 trains daily over 500 track miles. SEPTA locomotive engineers operate trains into and out of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, servicing 160 stations over tracks owned by SEPTA, Amtrak, CSX, Norfolk Southern and Conrail. The central location for the service is Philadelphia. SEPTA carries over 100,000 passengers daily.
The BLE and SEPTA
BLE General Chairman Steve Bruno characterizes the relationship between the BLE and SEPTA as "professional and courteous."
"SEPTA accepted, after many years and many battles, that the BLE can be an effective ally or a formidable foe. The BLE has forced SEPTA to recognize that fighting us is detrimental to their mission as a public agency," said Bruno. "I would characterize our current relationship with SEPTA as one of cautious optimism. We will continue to assist the company to grow and prosper as long it remains responsive to the needs of locomotive engineers."
While the relationship between the BLE and SEPTA is good currently, it was not always that way. When Conrail purged the passenger and commuter services from its operations, they were assumed by the respective transportation agencies along the Northeast Corridor. When the take-over occurred, several Presidential Emergency Boards were established to assure compliance with the Northeast Rail Service Act of 1981 (NERSA). The various agencies argued before the respective PEB's that the railroad-type pay rules for compensation, such as arbitraries and mileage, were obsolete and were the primary cause of Conrail's inability to operate the commuter services efficiently. The other agencies, New Jersey Transit and Metro North, were able to reach agreement with their carriers that largely protected the earning power of the locomotive engineers - but not SEPTA.
"SEPTA refused to accept our reasonable requests for consideration and argued that SEPTA was not operating a railroad and, as such, we were not covered by any of the FRA regulations, the Railroad Retirement Act or FELA," Bruno said. "Essentially, SEPTA's position was that the transferred employees were nothing more than bus drivers. Accordingly, their position before PEB 196 was that the locomotive engineers should be paid the SEPTA bus driver's rate. One quote that was largely circulated and particularly inflammatory was SEPTA's former Chief Labor Relations Officer Frank Hucthinson's, 'What's the difference between the bus driver and the locomotive engineer? All they have to do is follow the lights.' "
That attitude resulted in the BLE calling a strike that lasted 108 days. The BLE had hoped to accomplish several things in this strike, including:
All of those goals were achieved. However, the BLE was unsuccessful in convincing SEPTA to pay a competitive wage that considers all of the previous remuneration mechanisms that the locomotive engineers enjoyed with Conrail.
"When we recognized the futility of that endeavor, we established a new approach to achieve that goal - make SEPTA responsive to the market for the services of locomotive engineers or suffer the consequences. We accomplished that by creating unending flow-back rights to the previous employers, Conrail and Amtrak," said Bruno. "Those flow-back right still exist today and were continued in the recent acquisition of Conrail by NS and CSX. Approximately 25 percent of the current membership still enjoy flow-back rights to NS, CSX, Conrail and Amtrak."
SEPTA has experienced the flow-back of over three quarters of its original locomotive engineer workforce. In addition, hundreds of the "New Hire" engineers left for other railroads along the Northeast Corridor. This lack of competitiveness created significant operational problems for SEPTA. Coupled with the costs of training locomotive engineers to replace the depleted roster caused SEPTA significant financial problems and has been the primary cause of the departure of several labor relations officers, including Mr. Hutchinson.
"The market driven leverage created the flow-back rights, which were created with the leverage by the strike in 1983, has helped us tremendously to accomplish the BLE goal of providing an excellent quality of life for our members and their families," said Bruno. "Several of the agreements that we have negotiated since 1983 have seen significant improvements in the pattern of negotiating for the other crafts on the property."
The membership of SEPTA, like on most of the passenger railroads in the Northeast, is diverse. As a public agency, SEPTA is very sensitive to the issue of diversity. Since it assumed the operation of the commuter service from Conrail in 1983, SEPTA has hired over 2,000 Locomotive Engineer Trainees. It keeps detailed records on race, ethnicity, and gender for each group it hires for training in any craft.
"For the most part the membership is not unusual. The large majority of our members want what every BLE member, and indeed every working man and woman, wants - a better life for themselves and their families. They want to work in a safe environment, earn a good living and enjoy the respect of their employer," said Bruno.
"What makes us ordinary is that we have to fight for these simple dignities just like every other BLE member. We are confronted with the same issues as every other BLE member, certification consequences, disciplinary consequences and harassment by overzealous bosses who are looking to make a name for themselves at the expense of one or several of us.
"While the membership is not unusual, the working environment can be extremely different. The commodity that we transport, human lives, places a significant level of scrutiny on the performance of the locomotive engineers in passenger service. Minor infractions quickly become major investigations with the potential for major consequences."
Like on all passenger railroads, every passenger carried by SEPTA is the boss.
"Each passenger believes that they know what is the proper way to perform our duties and most have no scruples about letting us or the media know how they feel," said Bruno. "We are constantly confronted with defending our members from complaints that arise from uninformed passengers who report what they perceive to be failures on our part to an unsympathetic SEPTA who is only too willing to place blame on the Locomotive Engineer (human error)."
The BLE members on SEPTA continue to carry on inspite of the challenges they face from management and the public.
© 2001 Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers