Mayor Cherelle Parker said she’s optimistic Philly will avert a major city worker strike next week

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker said Friday she is optimistic her administration will reach a deal for a new contract with the largest union for city workers, despite the union’s leader saying its members are likely to go on strike next week.

“I’m hoping that we come away from the table with some common ground,” Parker said at a City Hall news conference. “Philadelphia, your mayor is an eternal optimist. I believe in GTY — getting to yes."

Parker’s team spent much of Friday in closed-door negotiations with Greg Boulware, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33, which represents the city’s blue-collar workers, including trash collectors and street pavers.

» READ MORE: Contracts for Philly’s four largest city unions are about to expire, and one is threatening to strike. Here’s what you need to know.

The contracts for all four major unions representing Philadelphia’s municipal workers expire Tuesday, the beginning of the next fiscal year. Union members often work on the terms of expired contracts while new deals are being hashed out, and in those circumstances, city employees have previously been paid retroactively for raises included in new contracts.

But Boulware has maintained that he is treating the contract expiration Tuesday as a final deadline — despite both sides continuing to exchange proposals this week.

“We are absolutely firm in our position that if we don’t have a deal, we are planning to go on strike,” Boulware said in an interview Thursday. “We love our jobs, we enjoy doing our jobs, but it’s increasingly difficult day by day if you go home and you have financial strife and hardships in the city you’re providing services for.”

About 95% of DC 33 members last week voted to authorize Boulware to call a strike as soon as 12 a.m. Tuesday, he said. It would be the union’s first major strike since 1986. (The union briefly walked off the job in October 1992, but reached a deal about 14 hours later.)

DC 33’s members are the lowest-paid of the four major municipal unions, making about $46,000 per year on average. Boulware’s strike threat represents years of frustration that the union’s members haven’t received substantially better pay over successive mayoral administrations.

A strike could shut down many city services, lead to trash piling up in residential neighborhoods, and cause disruptions for the city’s July Fourth celebrations.

DC 33’s nearly 10,000 members could at some point be joined by the more than 3,000 city workers represented by AFSCME District Council 47, which includes white-collar city employees such as supervisors and medical professionals. That union, which is also in talks with the Parker administration, has not held a strike authorization vote.

The mayor declined to discuss the particulars of the negotiations on Friday. Her administration has set aside $550 million for added costs from new labor contracts in its five-year financial plan.

“What I desire … is a contract for all our municipal unions that is fair and fiscally responsible,” Parker said. “That’s my goal, and I’m going to keep on trying to hammer out a compromise, because that’s who I am.”

Boulware has said the two sides are far apart on the schedule of annual raises he is hoping to win for his members over the next several years.

Parker’s team, led by Chief Deputy Mayor Sinceré Harris, initially offered four years of 2% annual raises, with DC 33 asking for four years of 8% raises.

On Wednesday, Boulware said both sides inched toward each other: The administration offered a three-year deal with raises of 2%, 2.4%, and 3%, he said. And DC 33 offered four years of 5.75% raises.

Still, Boulware characterized that as “minimal” progress that, in his view, was unlikely to avert a strike beginning Tuesday.

On the surface, it is surprising that DC 33 would consider calling its first major strike in four decades on the first day after its current deal expires. The union, for instance, never went on strike when it worked without a contract for five years during an acrimonious showdown with former Mayor Michael A. Nutter, who sought major concessions on city workers’ benefits following the 2008 economic crisis.

And unlike Nutter, Parker has strong union ties and does not appear to be asking for significant givebacks from the municipal unions. Last year she agreed to give DC 33 members $1,400 bonuses and 5% raises, the union’s largest across-the-board pay bump in about 30 years.

But Boulware insists his strike threat is not merely a bargaining tactic.

“The only thing that would stop a strike would be the city coming to terms with us,” he said.

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

Public opinion often plays a key role in whether strikes succeed, and Boulware said he is confident Philadelphians would have DC 33’s back.

“Everybody’s going to be frustrated with the lack of services that are available at that time, even our membership,” he said. “By and large, I think a lot of the public will empathize with our position.”

Boulware also said he is not concerned about whether DC 33 will enjoy broad support from other unions, which can also be a factor in whether strikes achieve their goals. Parker, for instance, is close with the Philadelphia building trades, and Boulware said those unions have separate priorities because they are better paid.

“We are public sector. We are not in the same economic ballpark,” he said. “They don’t have a complaint.”

Boulware won his post last year after an intense leadership battle within DC 33. The faction Boulware is associated with has been at odds with Parker since the 2023 mayor’s race.

Under former DC 33 president Ernest Garrett, a Boulware ally, the union endorsed Jeff Brown, who lost to Parker in the Democratic primary. But in a dramatic move, two locals within DC 33 broke off and endorsed Parker.

Omar Salaam, the leader of one of those locals, then became DC 33 president after his faction accused Garrett of making expenditures without approval from the union’s executive board.

Boulware, in turn, defeated Salaam in a bitter election for union president last year that saw the two engage in a physical confrontation that drew police to the union’s headquarters.

Boulware emerged from the dispute vowing to win major compensation increases for DC 33 members. Last year, he fought Parker for months when the mayor asked all four unions to sign one-year contract extensions, instead of traditional multiyear deals, to allow her administration to find its footing in her first year.

And this year, he has aggressively broadcast his intention to call for a strike if he doesn’t win significant concessions from the city. Although Parker projected confidence Friday, city agencies are preparing for the potential work stoppage.

DC 33 represents front-line workers in every corner of city government, including work crews with the Philadelphia Water Department, staffers at parks and recreation centers, and maintenance workers at Philadelphia International Airport.

Water Commissioner Randy Hayman on Thursday sent an internal memo laying out the agency’s plans for continuing service in the event of a strike. Employees not represented by DC 33 may be reassigned to different roles, he wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The Inquirer. And scheduled paid time off for those workers would be canceled during the strike, he said.

“In anticipation of a possible strike, the Department has established and will enact continuity of operations plans,” Hayman wrote.

City Council President Kenyatta Johnson said he is hopeful both sides will continue bargaining and avoid a strike.

“My position is — regardless of the political comments, the posturing — we want both parties to stay at the table to get a deal done," Johnson told reporters Friday. “The people in the city of Philadelphia do not want to see a strike, so we want both sides to sit at the table as long as it takes.”