PHILADELPHIA — SEPTA and the Transport Workers Union have reached a tentative agreement on a two-year contract, averting a strike the union had said was imminent.
“I am very pleased that we were able to settle without a strike,” TWU Local 234 President Will Vera said in a statement today (Dec. 8). “… Patience was growing thin and management seemed unhurried. Usually, we would have been locked into a hotel until we got this done.”
Vera had said on Friday that a strike could come at any time [see “Union says strike …,” Trains.com, Dec. 6, 2025]. Today, he credited Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro with playing a key role in the agreement.
“The governor and his people got key people from both sides into the same room last night, stopped the run-around, got promises from both sides and we reached a deal,” Vera said. “Without the governor’s intervention we would have been on strike this morning.”
Terms include a 3.5% wage increase each of the next two years; increases in pensions, night differential pay, and the tool and clothing allowance; and improvements to benefits for new employees including the start of vision and dental coverage after 90 days rather than 15 months. It also includes a program to improve absence management; SEPTA said that and the night pay differential increase are expected to help ensure adequate staffing.
The agreement will go to union members for ratification later this month, then will have to be approved by the SEPTA board. The union represents more than 5,000 workers including bus and rail transit operators.
“I greatly appreciate the efforts of negotiators on both sides, and we are grateful to Gov. Shapiro and his team for their efforts to help us resolve differences and reach a tentative agreement,” SEPTA General Manager Scott Sauer said in a statement. “The tentative contract agreement is both fair to our hardworking front-line employees, and fiscally responsible to our fare-paying riders and the taxpayers who fund SEPTA.”
Union members had worked without a contract since Nov. 7.
— To report news or errors, contact trainsnewswire@firecrown.com.
