PHILADELPHIA — Some 10,000 city workers, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33, walked off the job July 1. The union represents sanitation workers, 911 emergency call center dispatchers, library assistants, as well as water treatment and maintenance workers and others. The last time the union struck was in 1986.
The city immediately filed court injunctions aimed at weakening the strike.
One injunction limits picket lines “to a maximum of eight picketers” and imposes other restrictions on workers being able to mount an effective strike. There are 60 temporary drop-off sites where people can take their trash, and the city wants to block union efforts to picket entrances there. Another injunction was filed to reopen all Philadelphia libraries.
Common Pleas Court Judge Sierra Thomas-Street ordered workers from the water department and most of those at the 911 call center back to work, barring their right to strike as “essential workers.”
After years of inflation, a central demand of the union is an increase in wages. The city is offering an 8.75% wage increase over three years while the union is proposing 8% a year. “Quite honestly, we feel like the city hasn’t come with an offer that’s respectable enough,” Greg Boulware, District 33 president told WHYY. “That’s why we are where we are right now.”
The union is also asking for cost-of-living increases, bonuses of up to $5,000 for those who worked through the pandemic, and fully paid employee health care.