SEPTA Engineers to Take Strike Vote

“Engineers who operate SEPTA Regional Rail trains will soon vote on authorizing a strike, the national office of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen said Friday,” the Inquirer reports. “The engineers, as well as SEPTA railroad electrical workers represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 744, are in a federally mandated 30-day ‘cooling off’ period that will end June 14.”

The Inky adds that a strike vote would probably result in a White House-created “emergency board” to keep the sides talking without a strike for another 240 days.

The union is separate from the Transit Workers Union, led by Willie Brown, which represents most SEPTA workers — which has been working without a contract since April 7, while the two sides try to haggle out some final differences. A representative for TWU told Philly Mag today the union is “still in numbers-crunching phase” on the details of SEPTA’s most-recent proposal.