Posts tagged public safety

    If SEPTA Transit Police go on strike, who fills the void? What you need to know

    November 21, 2023 // With a SEPTA strike, figures show more than 250 SEPTA police officers won't come to work. The officers cover SEPTA property across the city and into Delaware, Bucks, Chester and Montgomery Counties – as well as regional rail that reaches Trenton and Wilmington. At the massive 69th Street transportation hub, SEPTA police stay busy answering calls.

    PHILADELPHIA: SEPTA must negotiate contracts with nearly all its labor unions amid looming financial crisis

    September 18, 2023 // The authority projects an annual operating deficit of $240 million beginning next July 1 as the last of its federal pandemic aid is spent, a situation dubbed the “fiscal cliff” that afflicts most transit systems in the United States. Riders have not returned in pre-COVID 19 numbers, and changing travel patterns have accelerated in the last three years. SEPTA and the state’s other public transit agencies are pushing for the legislature to adopt a measure that would give them a greater share of the sales tax to support operations. Uncertainty about finances makes it difficult to say “yes” to increased pay and benefits for TWU Local 234, which represents operators of buses, trolleys, and transit trains, SEPTA CEO Leslie S. Richards said Tuesday during a hearing of the state House Transportation Committee at the agency’s headquarters.

    Opinion: An unprecedented labor shortage

    July 26, 2022 // There are 50% more job openings today than at any time before the pandemic. The unemployment rate is near a half-century low. So how did that happen? A combination of government policies that simultaneously reduced the supply of workers and stimulated demand for goods and services. There are 755,000 fewer people employed today than at the start of the pandemic, despite an increase of 4.2 million in the population of people ages 16 and older. employment-to-population ratio, labor force decline, Social Security, welfare-without-work, federal subsidies, Recognized Apprenticeship Programs, Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, education alternatives, encourage flexible work