PHILADELPHIA—After talks broke down in an apparent impasse, some 9,000 Philadelphia city blue-collar workers—including sanitation engineers, airport workers, 911 dispatchers, water department workers, and school crossing guards—represented by AFSCME District Council 33, started a strike on July 1. It’s the council’s first blue-collar strike in 39 years.
Wages were the key issue, but not the only one. The two sides are discussing a proposed three-year contract, and the city has offered a cumulative 8% raise, starting in July 2025. The union initially sought 8% percent yearly, not counting cost-of-living increases tied to the consumer price index. It’s now come down to around 20% over three years, news reports say.
“We got people that work and repair the water mains and can’t afford their water bill,” council President Greg Boulware explained at a rally in front of City Hall. One union contract proposal was that the city reimburse workers whose performance is satisfactory or better by a 10% subsidy of their water bills.
“We got people that repair the runways at the airport and can’t afford a plane ticket. I don’t want to be rich. We just want a comfort inside the city that we serve daily,” Boulware said. “When inflation is up and the cost of living is up 2%, 3% raises don’t change the narrative.”
Besides the larger pay hike and the COLAs, the union’s initial contract proposals and justifications include changing funeral leave to funeral/bereavement leave, so workers who can’t physically attend a relative’s or family funeral—due to distance or other factors—can have time to grieve.
The union also wants to abolish the city’s two lowest pay grades and raise all the workers in those grades to the #3 grade. That would give the affected workers even larger raises. There was no count of how many workers would benefit, or how large those raises would be.
And workers who must clear off the snow and ice after one of the city’s frequent blizzards would be jumped two pay grades for the time they spent on that chore.
The Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha and Election Day would become paid holidays, too, the union proposes.
Workers who toil in certain “high-stress areas”—the union cited Kensington, site of “recent drug sweeps and other activities,” as an example—would get an extra $5 per hour in hazardous-duty pay. Workers who want to improve their skills and education within their department should get a $1,000 yearly tuition reimbursement, the Council 33 proposed.
That’s in addition to the city reimbursing truckers who must get commercial driver’s licenses, as well as health care workers who need licensing or certification to remain in their jobs: Licensed Practical Nurses, Medical Assistants, Mammographers, and Expanded Functions Dental Assistants.
The AFSCME council’s workers also want “me-too” parity if other city unions win pay and benefits that are better than theirs “through negotiation, arbitration or otherwise.”
And in another instance of “me-too,” AFSCME workers with over five years of service want the right to live in Pennsylvania while working in Philadelphia, but they don’t have to live in the city. Members of other city unions, according to the contract proposal notes, have that right.
The union’s initial contract proposal was even more explicit about bringing the Philadelphia blue-collar workers up to parity with their colleagues in other city unions, including the Fire Fighters and the white-collar workers of AFSCME District Council 47.
“All of our work, in equal ways, benefits the city and the public we serve,” the proposed pact declares. “Our contract should reflect that reality. No city union deserves a bigger piece of the pie than does any other. No one can say the job of any District Council 33 member is any less important, in serving the citizens, than the jobs of other unions’ members.
“All city work commands the respect of every citizen. Work our members do is just as worthy as the work done by” other city government unionists. “Our children deserve the same education and medical care as children of members of other unions…Our children need the same medicine as any firefighter’s child.
“All of us contribute, in different but collectively equivalent ways, to the important work the City does for all the people of Philadelphia. Why then should we be left behind? (their italics)
“District Council 33’s members contribute as much blood, sweat and tears as does anyone else. As we have often said: We all make the city work. Our contract must reflect that reality.”
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