Judge orders 911 dispatch workers to return to work amid strike

A judge has ordered 237 striking workers with Philadelphia’s 911 call center to return to work, agreeing with city officials’ assertions Tuesday that the absence of emergency dispatchers “poses unacceptable threats to public health, safety and welfare.”

Common Pleas Court Judge Sierra Thomas-Street issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday afternoon requiring dispatchers to return to work. She said the absence of the dispatchers created a “clear and present danger” to the city’s welfare and barred them from engaging in the strike for at least one week.

The order comes in response to a request for an injunction filed by lawyers for the city Tuesday in Common Pleas Court, in which they said the strike by District Council 33 workers, including 325 emergency dispatchers, created significant safety issues. The city’s holdover skeleton staff would not be able to handle the nearly 9,000 emergency calls dispatchers field each day, officials said in the filing.

Without the union workers of the city’s emergency call center, Philadelphia “runs an unacceptable risk of delay in answering 911 calls from the public and sending emergency resources to police emergencies,” a police sergeant wrote in a declaration attached to the filing.

The dispatchers walked off the job shortly after midnight Tuesday, joining over 9,000 DC 33 workers in the first major city workers strike since 1986, after negotiations between union leaders and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration reached a stalemate Monday night.

Only one trainee from the fire department showed up to a morning shift Tuesday morning, lawyers for the city said in the filing. Other workers from the union — the city’s lowest-paid employees, including trash collectors, street pavers, and mechanics — gathered outside city buildings and their workplaces and called for better pay.

The city’s filing underscored the high-stakes nature of the strike, the implications of which extend far beyond trash piling up in the streets — and the importance of 911 operators, who for years have said they are underpaid, underappreciated, and working in stressful, understaffed units.

Philadelphia’s 911 call center, staffed by about 325 union workers, averaged nearly 9,000 calls per day last year, the city said, dispatching police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical services throughout the city. Based on this call volume, the police radio alone needs 50 dispatchers for every eight-hour shift, the filing said.

An injunction would affect about 4% of the DC 33 workers on strike, the city told the court.

The city trained about 70 police officers and a “limited pool” of firefighters to work at the call center as part of a contingency plan, but their training is limited to just one to two weeks, compared to the six to eight weeks of classes dispatchers typically receive alongside on-the-job experience, according to court records.

The city said that it would need at least 15 more dispatchers to be able to handle the expected 911 call volume, and that officials have asked neighboring towns for help “to no avail,” the filing said.

“The call volume received by the 911 system is such that DC 33/Local 1637 employees cannot be adequately replaced by non-represented supervisors or the designated employees already trained by the city,” Police Sgt. Patrick Delany wrote in the declaration.

Ava Schwemler, of the city’s law department, said city officials were exploring all legal avenues to ensure the continuation of essential services.

DC 33 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Philly police dispatchers received across-the-board 10% raises last year following a probe by City Council amid an ongoing staffing shortage and low employee morale.

Two Philadelphia police officials on Tuesday said the impact of the strike had not yet been felt — in part because the backup staff were only on day one and had not been fully put to the test.

The city reported no shootings or serious emergency events through Tuesday morning. But the fear, said the officers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal issues, is that if multiple emergency calls come in at one time — say, several shootings and a fire within the same area — the holdover staff might struggle to manage the response.

The strike also comes just ahead of Fourth of July weekend — a holiday that has seen violent incidents and emergency responses in recent years. Last year, nine teens were shot in Southwest Philadelphia during a party on July Fourth, and Maurice White Quann, 19, was killed.

On July 4, 2023, a gunman dressed in body armor walked through Southwest Philadelphia and opened fire at random, killing five people and wounding two children. It was one of the deadliest mass shootings in the city’s history.

That shooting was preceded by a botched emergency response to a homicide two days earlier, when dispatchers sent officers to the wrong location. The incident led to a series of City Council hearings on issues with the city’s 911 call center, during which testimony portrayed an understaffed unit where workers are underpaid and underappreciated.

And over Independence Day in 2022, two Philadelphia police officers were shot during the celebrations on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, causing a panicked crowd to evacuate. Officials believe the officers were struck by someone who fired a gun into the air outside the site, over a mile away.