SEPTA reaches tentative deal with TWU Local 234 to avert strike

This story originally appeared on 6abc.

SEPTA reached a tentative agreement with the Transport Workers Union on Friday to avert a strike.

“As I told you guys before, we wanted to lock in to try to reach a tentative agreement without striking, we did that today,” said TWU Local 234 President Brian Pollitt during a press conference.

Details on the agreement have not been released.

Transport Workers Union Local 234’s contract expires on October 31, at 11:59 p.m. A strike was authorized to happen on Wednesday, November 1, if a deal wasn’t reached.

TWU Local 234 is the largest bargaining union in SEPTA and represents 5,000 employees.

Union members have said they’ve been working to address how raises, salaries and benefits are handled between managers and members. Safety and security were also among the top concerns.

The new deal comes just a day after a bus driver was killed while on the job.

Bernard Gribbin, 48, from Abington, Pennsylvania, was shot and killed Thursday while driving a Route 23 bus in the city’s Germantown section. He was a 12-year employee of the transit agency.

Transit officials told 6abc that they’ve added more police and are continuing to have large recruitment classes at the police academy, but say the transit agency is limited.

A strike would have shut down bus, train and trolley service around the city, and thousands of Philadelphia students would have been impacted as well.