SEPTA progress as Rendell, Brady, Nutter enter talks

A wise veteran of contract talks between SEPTA and the Transport Workers Union Local 234 once said that nothing happens until Gov. Rendell, U.S. Rep. Bob Brady and Mayor Nutter step in.

Well, all three jumped into negotiations over the weekend, and the pace quickened considerably.

Union leaders reluctantly agreed to drop the threat to strike in the middle of the World Series. Representatives of both sides said that they had solved the health-insurance issue, and they were close on wages .

TWU president Willie Brown said that members would not pay more for health insurance, and that he expected a contract soon, after working without one for nearly eight months.

Today, negotiations will reconvene in Rendell's regional office on the 11th floor at The Bellevue, on Broad Street at Walnut. Contract talks, expected to begin at 6 last night, were postponed.

"Everyone will start fresh in the morning," said SEPTA spokesman Richard Maloney. "Everyone was tired after a long, long week."

Rendell, Nutter and Brady directly engaged in negotiations, talking to both sides over the weekend, said spokesmen for SEPTA and the union.

Rendell ordered negotiators for the transit agency and union to bargain at his office on Saturday about 1:30 p.m. after they had stayed up until 3 a.m. that morning, said Maloney.

The governor said that he warned both sides to stay at the bargaining table or risk "significant consequences" of losing state support for mass transit.

Before heading to Game 3 of the Series on Saturday, Rendell personally "went back and forth between the two sides on specific issues of the bargaining," said Maloney. "And then he came back from the game."

Saturday's bargaining session broke up at 10:30 p.m., after nine hours of talks, according to both sides.

Neither the governor nor Nutter talked of increasing the city and state contributions to SEPTA, said Maloney.

"The pot is what it is; we have a certain amount of money for those three issues, and it's a matter of priority of how much goes where," he said, referring to wages, health insurance and pensions.

Both Nutter and Rendell were concerned about a strike during the World Series while Philadelphia was at the center of the nation's attention.

Rendell said that a strike would have given the city "a little bit of a black eye."

Brown said that as long as Rendell was involved in talks, the union would continue bargaining and not have a work stoppage, said a TWU spokesman.

The TWU is negotiating on behalf of its 5,500 members after three contracts expired in the spring, including the City Division on March 15, Victory District on April 2 and Frontier District on April 7.