Philly strike updates: Trash piling up; Parker says DC 33 leaders declined to negotiate today; protesters block Eakins Oval

As Mayor Cherelle L. Parker prepared to take the podium Thursday atop the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, members of Philadelphia’s largest municipal union cursed her name in protest less than a mile away. In between the power and the people, workers contracted by the city set about preparing Eakins Oval for Philadelphia’s annual Fourth of July celebration.

“You know what Mayor Parker and this rat have in common?” an organizer at the protest shouted through a bullhorn while gesturing to an oversized inflatable rat. “They’re both full of hot air.”

And so too was Philadelphia — albeit one with more of a pungent punch to it on the third day of an early-summer strike by members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33. The work stoppage — the union’s first major one in almost 40 years — has created something of a trash crisis ahead of the holiday, but there was to be no reconciliation Thursday. Union leaders, Parker said, declined to return to the negotiating table following a failed session that had started late Wednesday.

District Council 33 President Greg Boulware dismissed claims his leadership walked away from the negotiating table last night, telling reporters Thursday his team “needs to sit and actually have time to be able to go through and revise our proposal” before returning to the bargaining table.

“We're going to go back, sit, revise our proposal, get it over to the city, and then we'll happily be with them whenever we can set up an amicable date and time,” Boulware said, noting wages and health and welfare remain “paramount” issues and that the union wants to see provisions on certain work rules.

Boulware declined to comment about when the next negotiation session could be.

Trash piling up during a municipal strike is an obvious concern for public health, says Jennifer Kolker, a clinical professor of health management and policy at Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health.

But so are shuttered rec centers and pools — a sign of how crucial municipal workers are to the public health of a city.

"People use libraries to cool off in air conditioning. Rec centers and libraries are important places for kids to go in the summer when school is out. It's part of the social safety net of the city," she said.

Ryan Boyer, head of the Philadelphia building trades unions and a key ally of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, said he doesn’t believe supporting the mayor he helped elect and the thousands of city worker on strike is a “mutually exclusive” choice.

“We want them to get a fair contract, and we know the mayor will do what’s best,” Boyer said in an interview Thursday. “I just trust the process.”

Boyer chairs the Philadelphia Building Trades and Construction Council and is business manager of the Laborers District Council. The construction unions have vast campaign war chests and play a major role in city elections, including Parker’s win in the 2023 mayoral election.

Two Free Library of Philadelphia librarians joined the picket at Eakins Oval Thursday in protest of what they called a “disgusting, insulting and dangerous” situation at their branches.

Both librarians — who declined to be named out of fear of retaliation — are members of AFSCME 47, which is not on strike. Librarians are being encouraged to show up at work amid picket lines with police escorts as buffer.

“How are we to face our coworkers if we scab?” said one librarian, who has worked at her North Philly branch for 10 years. DC 33 members work as custodians, security guards, and other support staff at the city’s public library branches.

Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker delivered an animated defense of her leadership and administration Thursday and passionately denied false claims that have circulated on social media and among municipal workers that she gave herself a 9% raise.

Parker’s salary started in 2024 at the amount that former Mayor Jim Kenney’s ended in 2023 — $261,497— after he received a roughly 9% increase in the months before he left office.

Parker's salary rose by 3.1% to $269,708 over the last year.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said Thursday her current offer to DC 33 would cost the city $115 million over three years, the first time she has disclosed the price tag of the proposed contract.

Parker’s last offer was for a three-year deal with annual raises of 2.75%, 3%, and 3%, according to union president Greg Boulware.

The mayor’s office declined an Inquirer request to share details on the costs of contract proposals earlier this week. And Boulware told The Inquirer as recently as Wednesday night that the administration was not being clear about the costs during negotiations.

District Council 33 and District Council 47 workers have blocked traffic for the last 45 minutes at Eakins Oval, marching in a circle to cheers of “people power” as Mayor Cherelle L. Parker gives a press conference on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Drivers don’t seem to mind. Several have honked in support while passing by.

“She’s not being fair,” said Jerome Ragby, 58, who has worked as a custodian at the Philadelphia International Airport since 2023. Ragby, who gets paid $21 per hour, said he often has to work hours of overtime each week to make rent for his Southwest Philly home. He spends hours cleaning toilets and changing overflowing trash cans, occasionally dealing with disgruntled fliers in between.

City Solicitor Renee Garcia said during Thursday’s news conference the city “continues to face staffing challenges,” including at the Medical Examiner’s Office, saying it’s "critically understaffed.”

Garcia said understaffing at the Medical Examiner’s Office leads to delays in death investigations and the issuing of death certificates “and ultimately the delay in returning the remains of the deceased to their loved ones who are trying to lay them to rest.”

Garcia’s comments come after a judge ordered 31 DC 33 members back to work at the Medical Examiner’s Office after a lawsuit from the city said dead bodies are piling up in storage which poses health and safety risks.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker continued to reemphasize Thursday that the deal she’s offering DC 33 is “historic” and she wonders “whether or not even the local leaders are familiar with the historic terms that the city of Philadelphia has put on the table.”

At a Thursday afternoon news conference, Parker also said she’s not responsible for labor issues that occurred before her tenure that may have led to this moment.

Parker said she “can’t be held accountable for what happened during the Sutton years, I was in elementary school, I was working when Mayor Nutter was mayor. I can’t make up for those times, but I can be accountable for what the city of Philadelphia is doing right now.”

A judge ordered 31 District Council 33 members to return to work at the Medical Examiner’s Office in response to a lawsuit by the city that said dead bodies are piling up in storage, posing a health and safety risk.

Judge Sierra Thomas-Street ruled on the city’s request for an injunction preventing the workers from continuing the strike during a hearing in a City Hall courtroom Thursday afternoon. Attorneys representing District Council 33 did not object.

The 31 workers who were ordered to work include death and forensic investigators, forensic technicians, and clerks.

Fans are calling on the Wawa Welcome America headliners to skip out on the July 4th concert after the City of Philadelphia announced it would be using contract labor to set up the Benjamin Franklin Parkway festivities, a job normally performed by AFSCME District Council 33 members.

The city has contracted the Elliot-Lewis Corporation to move bike racks and place barriers ahead of Friday’s concert, Managing Director’s office spokesperson Sharon Gallagher previously told The Inquirer over email. Prior to that, the city emailed dozens of employees in the managing director’s office and asked them for assistance doing physical labor to set up for the event.

Utilizing non-union labor to do the work of union employees is called scabbing, and is discouraged by unions and their supporters. Performing at a concert set up by non-union labor, some say, could be considered crossing a picket line.

Gov. Josh Shapiro expressed support for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, saying he was “confident in the mayor’s ability to work” through the ongoing DC 33 strike negotiations.

“I have confidence in Mayor Parker to see this through and to find a way to resolve these differences, to pay a fair wage and to ensure that the good people of Philadelphia get the benefits of the great work that DC 33 members provide for our city every day,” he told reporters at an unrelated appearance at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia on Thursday.

Shapiro said state mediators were involved in “trying to find a resolution,” and that the city has not yet asked for state resources, but they’re in regular communication.

How far back in Philadelphia history does one have to go to understand this year’s city worker strike?

The 2023 mayor’s race? That’s when District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — the largest, lowest-paid municipal union for city workers, and currently on strike — endorsed Jeff Brown, a ShopRite proprietor who had never run for office.

The endorsement came as a shock and it helped spark a chain reaction of events in Philly labor and politics that culminated last year in the union’s selection of a new leader, Greg Boulware, who was always likely to have a strained relationship with the ultimate winner of that election, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker.

As the DC 33 worker strike grinds on, residents are being asked to bring their garbage to one of 60 drop-off sites the city had set up across the city. There are also six sanitation convenience centers, which will be open daily from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m.

The city says residents can bring up to eight bags of trash on their given collection day to a drop-off site, which will be open Monday through Saturday from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m.

As for overflowing dumpsters and bags of trash littering sidewalks, Crystal Jacobs Shipman, the commissioner of the Department of Sanitation, said vendors were attempting to replace full containers with empty ones multiple times per day, but are running into issues causing delays.

The Free Library’s summer free lunch program for children has been paused during the strike, Free Library spokesperson Mark Graham confirmed to The Inquirer.

The organization had been offering free meals at Haverford, Joseph E. Coleman Northwest Regional, McPherson Square Library, Oak Lane, and Queen Memorial libraries.

Nearly all Free Library branches remain closed, but the organization is seeking to open as many branches as possible while members of DC 33 continue to strike. The Free Library has struggled to get members of DC 47, which represents librarians, to report to those sites due to a number of issues, including concerns about crossing their coworkers’ picket lines.

Judging by The Inquirer and Daily News’ coverage of the last major garbage strike, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

Like today’s ongoing strike, the 1986 work stoppage kicked off July 1, and quickly resulted in mountains of trash piling up on city streets. After about 20 days, it resulted in some 45,000 tons of “stinking, maggot-laced garbage” sitting at neighborhood disposal sites, the Daily News and New York Times reported nearly 40 years ago.

That buildup continued for weeks, until July 19, 1986, when trash collectors returned to work, and began clearing tons of refuse at trash-transfer sites around the city. Since then, there has not been a major DC 33 work stoppage — until this week.

At rallies for AFSCME District Council 33’s striking workers, members say they’re not asking for anything more than Mayor Cherelle L. Parker gave herself: a healthy pay raise.

Members of the blue-collar municipal union have circulated images reading “9% for me, 2% for thee,” a reference to a claim that Parker gave herself a 9% pay raise while offering the union far less in early negotiations.

The claim has also taken hold on social media — but it’s not quite true, even if Parker’s pay and the mayor’s office’s spending on personnel has increased.

The first official negotiating session since the start of Philadelphia’s city worker strike ended at 1:15 a.m. Thursday with the two sides making no progress on the key issue: wage increases.

The session started Wednesday evening with Greg Boulware, president of the American Federation of State, Council and Municipal Employees District Council 33, offering a contract that maintained his demand for 5% annual raises but made changes to benefits, Boulware said.

Hours later, the city’s negotiating team, led by Chief Deputy Mayor Sinceré Harris, countered with an offer that maintained the city’s last offer on wages — a three-year deal with raises of 2.75%, 3%, and 3%, plus the addition of a fifth step in the union pay scale — but also included bonuses that would amount to 2% of each worker’s salary, Boulware said.

The city is canceling the half day scheduled for municipal workers on July 3, as a result of the ongoing strike by AFSCME District Council 33.

Managers and workers in other municipal unions were slated for “early dismissal” the day before Independence Day, but on Wednesday afternoon that was rescinded. 

“Please note that there will be no early dismissal on Thursday, July 3rd due to the ongoing strike,” an email sent to the Department of Human Services reads. “In the event the strike ends before July 3rd, the early dismissal will proceed as originally scheduled. All employees are expected to report for their regular work schedule.”

Amid the AFSCME District Council 33 strike, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration is contracting with the Elliot-Lewis Corporation to help prepare the Benjamin Franklin Parkway for the July Fourth Wawa Welcome America Festival by placing barriers and moving bike racks.

The company is a major longstanding contractor with the city. Recent projects include the renovation of Parker’s Riverview Wellness Center in Northeast Philadelphia, a keystone of her opioid strategy.

“The contractor for this July 4th preparation project, Elliott Lewis Corporation, already has a contract with the City and this is within the emergency procurement process within our guidelines,” Sharon Gallagher, senior director of communications with the Managing Director’s Office, said in an email. “They have performed this exact work for the City in the past.”

Trash collection

Trash collection has been put on hold, and city residents are being asked to not set their garbage out on the curb on their usual collection day. Instead, the city has opened more than 60 drop-off locations where residents are able to bring up to eight bags of trash on their given collection day.

Recycling