From The Desk Of Kristine Kennedy: You Gotta Be Kidding Me, SEPTA
An Open Letter to SEPTA employees who support a strike:A strike? A six percent raise during what very well might be a depression? Are you serious? My husband was almost laid off last month and instead, must forgo a raise and his usual year-end bonus indefinitely. Many of my friends, several who were unionized workers at the Inquirer, have lost their jobs and may lose their homes.
You get no sympathy from us, SEPTA employees. If you want a raise while the rest of us chew our finger nails to the bone awaiting economic disaster, work for it. For your $24 an hour, sell me a token at MY train station. Provide change for a fare. Wake up from your nap, oh slumbering man behind bullet-proof glass, so that I don’t miss the train because I must pay in cash because you cannot sell me a token– even though there is a fare schedule implying the sale of tokens right above your head.
Deal with this crisis just like the rest of us. Go to work so the few of us who have not been laid off can get to our jobs. Forgo the raise, as we all must right now. Pay for your health care, as we all do. In exchange, we will put our grudges aside, continue to ride, and when things get better, regard your naps as a mere inconvenience as we slide our $5 bill under the glass while the train departs without us.
Most Sincerely,
Kristine Kennedy
Kristine Kennedy is a writer and carpenter living in Fishtown.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:42 am
that is one broad brush.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Oh, amen. Fuck Septa.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:46 am
and, now is not the time for workers to be turning on each other. it will make the bankers who looted the economy very happy to see it. imo.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:52 am
The world is going to hell in a hand basket and these fuckers think they can ask for a nicer basket? FUCK THEM.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:55 am
If SEPTA employees worked in a “for profit” enterprise, their lazy asses wouldn’t last a week.
March 11th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
what if all the inky expats scabbed for septa
March 11th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
It’s like the opposite of what our grandparents’ generation did! Weren’t they the greatest?
March 11th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
mappy and J.T. Ramsay, put down your respective Howard Zinn and Tom Brokaw talking points. You’re backing a cause that was actually calling in its talking points for SEPTA to mis-use stimulus money. There are plenty of legitimate grievances in Philadelphia, but SEPTA’s bus, trolley, and subway workers don’t have anything to stand on in this labor market. A threatened strike is not a tactic to redress an actual wrong, it’s extortion, plain and simple.
broad brush, maybe, but as a frequent user of all Septa systems under a strike threat, I’d say it pretty well matches the situation.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Yeah, last I checked the workers don’t actually make business decisions, they just operate the trolleys and buses and trains.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I love when workers turn against each other, the mindset that every one should be doing as bad as I am is the real way to achieve progress.
The reason cities and states are at budget deficits right now is because of loss of revenue, revenue lost by wages of those who were laid off. The *last* thing we need right now is people making more money and putting more back into the pot.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
@julia
Please invite me and Mayor Nutter to your magical arboretum. I’m sure it will help solve the “we’ve got no money, but if we pay people more we’ll get more money” dilemma we both find ourselves in.
March 11th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Ramsay, what the hell are you talking about? No one’s taking SEPTA’s workers to task for anything besides their own conduct on the job and bone-headedly threatening “their fellow workers” with a strike. I know, what with you using Brokaw and Tom Hanksisms to wax about the golden days of Labor that they must be giving you some sort of aerosol in Comcast tower that makes you a bit fuzzy on the truths of blue collar workers; but public sector strikes should only be launched when a serious injustice must be remedied because their consequences don’t hurt management but most often the needy. What injustice needs to be remedied here?
You know what happened the last time SEPTA workers went on strike? People a lot worse off than SEPTA workers lost jobs permanently or temporarily. And what did the noble SEPTA union win at that price?
Again, what are they fighting for here? And is that really worth the loss of money on the part of the less fortunate?
I’ll stop the hard asking questions, you can return to knee jerking your romantic view of labor and wet dream over how the “Greatest Generation” got things done through a spirit national unity (cough).
March 11th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
“Transport Workers Union President Willie Brown has notified SEPTA that the Union will not strike at 12:00 midnight on March 14th, when the bargaining agreement between SEPTA and TWU is set to expire.” – http://www.septa.com/sip/
I would very much like to side with labor as a rule of thumb. However, this union does not work for some evil for-profit corporation; they work for us, the USA, PA and Philadelphia tax payers. SEPTA, as a business, does not even cover half of its costs of operation. The rest of the money comes from Federal, State and local subsidies. Why? BECAUSE IT IS AN ESSENTIAL PUBLIC SERVICE. Some might even say that SEPTA service compares to services like Police, Firefighters, Trash Collection [cough, cough]. If any of these services were to strike, there would be holy hell. There better be an astonishing social injustice behind that kind of strike.
With SEPTA, in my experience over the last decade, you have amazingly poor customer service – be it behind the counter or on the bus/trolley/subway (regional rail is separate from this potential labor dispute). I’m sure many bus/trolley/subway riders would agree. It’s really tough to get behind rude/ignorant/unhelpful/entitled people when their benefits come out of our pockets either by fare or through taxes. Being that many riders who rely (not appreciate, but rely) upon SEPTA services could only hope to be paid (including benefits) as SEPTA employees are, there is little support there as well when the strike happens.
I can sympathize with having to bear a new brunt of Healthcare costs – as almost everyone else has to do the same. However, until SEPTA wields more union/political power for the greater Healthcare reform movement [Single Payer, hollah!] – I will lend a deaf ear to their, “just cause you lost yours, doesn’t mean I can’t keep mine” argument when they essentially coerce the rest of us underinsureds to foot their bill simply to have them resume their essential services.
Certain unions give the union movement, in general, a bad name. I would say that the Transport Workers Union falls into this category.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
AFR sums up my feelings pretty nicely. SEPTA workers are overcompensated for what they do relative to what private sector workers with similar jobs make, and they have better benefits and job security too. The idea of SEPTA striking for anything is extremely unsympathetic.