Residential trash collection by the Department of Sanitation is set to resume Monday morning after the City of Philadelphia reached a surprise deal with a striking municipal union early Wednesday morning.
AFSCME District Council 33, led by president Greg Boulware, represents nearly 10,000 city employees, including water treatment plant operators, public librarians, sanitation workers and 911/411 dispatchers. It is headquartered at 3001 Walnut Street, adjacent to World Cafe Live.
DC 33 is often referred to as “the blue-collar union” of the four major city worker unions, representing the most Black members and being the lowest-paid union on average – about $46,000 per year. According to a living wage calculator developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that salary will not cover the cost of living in Philly for a single adult.
DC 33’s contract extension expired last year. Union members voted to authorize a strike in November, and after months of negotiations proved fruitless, Boulware left the table and called a work stoppage at 12:01 A.M. on Tuesday, July 1.
There were few signs of the strike on Drexel University’s campus, where a private contractor is responsible for trash removal.
However, in Powelton Village and Mantua, two weeks of missed trash pickups yielded an unbearable olfactory overload on some blocks. The overall effects were mitigated somewhat by the city’s requirement for apartment buildings with more than six units to hire a private collection agency. Free residential collection by the city is funded by property taxes.
The strike forced Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, a longtime labor advocate who was elected with endorsements from major unions, into an ugly confrontation with DC 33. DC 33 had endorsed Jeff Brown in the Democratic primary.
Ultimately, Parker took a hard line, refusing to accept any terms that would put the city’s “fiscal stability… in jeopardy,” going so far as to say she’d rather be a one-term mayor than take a bad deal.
The union demanded five percent annual raises, increased healthcare contributions, relaxed residency requirements, and a fifth step in the pay scale.
The final contract, yet to be ratified, represents minimal concessions from the mayor’s original offer: three percent annual raises for three years, a one-time signing bonus of $1500 and a fifth pay scale with a two percent raise for veteran employees. The contract is expected to cost $115 million over the next five years.
While the union claimed its strike fund had not been emptied, leadership acknowledged its leverage was waning as city solicitors won injunctions forcing emergency dispatchers back to work and filed others against picketing.
Pending ratification by union members, the negotiated contract represents a major win for Parker, who ran on promises of a cleaner and greener city.
“It was really beautiful to see the whole city rally around the DC 33 employees and really support them… But the end result led me to be disappointed with our mayor and current City Council,” Caleigh Brogan, a fourth-year mechanical engineering major, told The Triangle.
“DC 33 was forced to accept the raise that was far below their desired [raise] and what they actually deserve. They’re essential employees and should be paid as such.”
For the duration of the strike, city officials instructed residents to drop off trash at sanitation centers or improvised pickup sites. The nearest options to campus were at Schuylkill River Park in Fitler Square or 43rd Street and Fairmount Avenue near Vidas Field.
In the meantime, the city is urging residents to drop off trash at sanitation centers until pickup resumes Monday.
The last major sanitation workers’ strike occurred in 1986 and lasted three weeks, ending after a judge ruled that the piled-up garbage posed a “clear and present danger” to public health and ordered trash collectors back to work.