By Jared Shelly

– SEPTA’s largest union puts its labor situation succinctly: “The day of reckoning is fast approaching.”

That was the opening line of a letter to the workers that control the city’s buses and subways. It’s alerting them of a strike authorization vote on Sunday. If a strike passes, the union could walk off the job at any time, halting a majority of the public transportation in the city. (Regional rail trains would continue to run, since its union recently signed a new contract.)

The TWU Local 234 union has been negotiating with SEPTA on and off for months. It’s been without a contract since the spring. At the moment, the main sticking point is pensions, said President Willie Brown in an interview earlier this month. He says that union workers realize significantly less monthly income from pensions than SEPTA management workers.

“With us, it’s not a question of if we strike it’s a question of when we strike,” Brown told me in early October.

As time passes, that threat seems to look more and more like it could become a reality. The letter to union members said the following:

“SEPTA’s latest proposal would freeze our pension benefits at current levels for five years, require all TWU members to contribute 10 percent of the premium for health insurance, which is approximately $2636/year for family coverage, and force us to eat substantially higher co-payments for office visits, hospital services and prescription benefits,” the letter states.

It goes on to say: “We have to fight to secure wage increases that will enable us to maintain a decent standard of living… We have to squash the naysayers, put aside petty differences, join together on the picket lines and in the streets and be determined to fight for what is rightfully ours.”

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/morning_roundup/2014/10/septa-union-to-hold-strike-authorization-vote.html