Philly’s largest municipal union says it will ‘shut this city down’ if a contract deal isn’t reached soon

Philadelphia’s largest union of municipal workers is prepared to “shut this city down” if it is unable to negotiate a new contract with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker‘s administration by the end of June, AFSCME District Council 33 president Greg Boulware said Thursday.

The news comes after what Boulware described as five months of stalled contract negotiations with the city, which he said failed to provide an initial financial plan until May. DC33 began voting Tuesday on authorizing a strike and is to announce results on Monday as talks continue.

“With every topic of discussion … we’ve made little to no movement at all,” Boulware told The Inquirer. “The proposal from the city has been nothing but a long list of concessions, and we certainly are not interested in giving up rights that we currently have.”

A spokesperson for the mayor’s office declined to comment on specifics, citing the ongoing negotiations. City Council on Thursday approved Parker’s $6.8 billion budget, which earmarked $550 million for wage increases for Philadelphia’s four municipal unions.

“As we conduct and continue negotiations with our municipal unions, check the history, check the budgets. We have never had a $550 million labor reserves going into our negotiations in the history of the City of Philadelphia, and I’m proud of it,” Parker said during City Council’s Thursday session. “I am unapologetic about being a pro-labor, pro-worker, pro-union mayor, and we will make sure that we do it with fiscal responsibility and fairness in mind.”

» READ MORE: Philly City Council has approved a $6.8 billion budget for the next year. Here’s what that means for residents, workers, and businesses.

DC33 represents roughly 10,000 blue-collar city workers across the streets, sanitation, and parks and recreation departments, as well as correctional officers and Philadelphia Housing Authority employees, among others. DC33’s members include police dispatchers, trash collectors, water treatment plant operators, and more.

The average salary of DC33 members is between $45,000 and $46,000, Boulware said, rendering many eligible for public assistance programs depending on the size of their household.

Boulware was flanked by State Rep. Tarik Khan (D., Philadelphia), City Councilmembers Isaiah Thomas and Nina Ahmad, and top union brass at Thursday’s news conference. They took shots at the Parker administration for proposing a 2% annual wage increase over the next four years.

The raises, Boulware said, would amount to $925 a year — almost infinitesimal when split across 26 paychecks. “Not acceptable,” Khan said to thunderous applause.

DC33’s latest wave of contract negotiations comes after the Parker administration narrowly avoided a united-front strike from DC33 and two of Philadelphia’s transit unions in November by offering a retroactive one-year contract extension that included a 5% raise and a lump-sum bonus of $1,400.

That extension expires June 30. Boulware said he would meet with city officials for more talks Friday morning. Around 7,500 DC33 members could walk off the job “very soon” after June 30 if a strike is authorized and no deal is reached, Boulware said.

» READ MORE: What to know about District Council 33, Philly's largest union of city workers

The last time DC33 went on strike was in 1986, when 45,000 tons of “stinking, maggot-laced garbage” sat unattended at neighborhood disposal sites for 20 days, the Daily News and the New York Times reported.

“For many years, our workers have been underpaid and undervalued, but we’re the essential ones that make sure everything is done,” Boulware said at the news conference. “All we ask for is our slice of the pie.”

DC33 has proposed a three-year contract that would expire in June 2028, according to a document the union posted to Facebook.

Demands include annual cost-of-living adjustments plus yearly 8% raises alongside a lump-sum payment of $5,000 for members who worked full-time in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposal also asks the city to relax the residency requirement to let members reside outside city limits — but within Pennsylvania — after five years of service.

Boulware said the latter provision is due to concerns about union workers getting priced out of Philadelphia, as the cost of buying and renting in the city has increased.

Current “wages do not meet the needs of our people,” Boulware said.

Also in DC33’s contract proposal: additional stress pay for employees who must work in neighborhoods that present “unusual hazards.” The proposal cites Kensington as an example, saying “intensive and accelerated” sweeps to arrest people using drugs have made the jobs of some DC33 workers harder.

» READ MORE: From 2024: Mayor Cherelle Parker reached a one-year deal with the city’s biggest union, averting a strike

The only thing the city and DC33 agree on is the need for a multiyear contract, Boulware said. Both parties sit so far apart on wages, he said, that they have been unable to make progress on other provisions.

“We thought, having signed an extension, that [it] was a new stepping stone for wages for our members … but, sadly, the offer that we received was subpar and much lower than we would ever [have] expected,” Boulware said at the news conference.

The city is offering wage increases “consistent with the ability to pay and the Five-Year plan,” according to a proposal presented to DC33 in January. That ended up becoming 2% pay bumps over the course of negotiations, Boulware said.

The city’s proposal also attempts to roll back some allowances, such as the union overseeing its own healthcare plan and seniority factoring into overtime requests. City departments would also be able to change employees’ schedules to include weekend and overnight work without overtime.

“We have negotiated in good faith and will continue to negotiate in good faith,” Boulware said at the news conference. “We will meet anytime, any place, anywhere to make this happen.”

Staff writers Jake Blumgart and Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.