Newspaper accounts from yesterday and today bring the news that the Port Authority board and its union have agreed to a contract deal that will run through 2020. This was the first contract approved by the PAT board whose makeup was reformed in 2013 and under the transportation funding plan approved under Act 89 of that same year.
Transit users can breathe a sigh of relief that there won’t be a stoppage of service as a result of a strike, as was the case in November in Philadelphia. With a four year deal and a five year deal at PAT and SEPTA, respectively, it would be an opportune time for the General Assembly to amend the laws that permit transit strikes. As we noted in 2014, there was a proposal to do so just for SEPTA, and while the current contract negotiations for PAT proceeded through fact-finding and there was only a brief public hint of a strike (see this article as an example) it would be beneficial to end the threat of transit strikes in the state.
