Mayor Parker calls on Philadelphia businesses to return to in-person work

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker called on Philadelphia’s business community Wednesday to follow her administration’s lead and require remote employees to return to in-person work, saying a cleaner and safer future for Center City is “only sustainable if they come back to the office.”

The mayor’s remarks came in her first address to the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, which hosts an annual luncheon that mayors often use to preview their upcoming budget proposal and explain how they intend to advance their priorities.

Parker, who was sworn in to office last month as the city’s first female chief executive, reiterated that her administration intends to call back all municipal employees to work in person and responded to pushback over the policy, saying members of the city workforce are “not assets and they will be treated with respect and dignity.”

“The people of Philadelphia deserve a government that they can see, touch, and feel,” she said. “It’s impossible to do this if our unparalleled city workforce is only working virtually.”

Business leaders often clashed with City Hall during the tenure of Parker’s predecessor, Jim Kenney, who led the creation of the controversial tax on sweetened beverages and the adoption of cutting-edge worker protection laws. Following pushback, Kenney in 2020 used his Chamber address to urge business leaders to “please put to rest once and for all that Philly is bad for business.”

Parker is seen as more of a centrist, and her speech Wednesday was the first indicator of how the dynamic will unfold during her tenure. Aside from her call to action on returning to in-person work, the mayor’s remarks were likely what the business executives gathered at the Pennsylvania Convention Center wanted to hear.

She spoke at length about her administration’s plans to cut red tape and remove barriers for small-business growth, convene roundtables of advisers from the business community, and prepare for major events scheduled to take place in 2026 such as the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.

And she focused on unity during the hourlong speech, imploring the business community — of which there were 2,000 members in the room — to partner with City Hall and vowing that she’d be accessible.

“If you want to help slow the rise of gun violence in the city, if you want to help reduce poverty, I need you to play an active role — a proactive role — in getting involved in the Parker administration,” she said. “I’m not afraid to make tough decisions to restore order to our city, but I need you to step up and I need you to help this administration.”

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Sue Jacobson, the former chair of the Chamber’s board, said Parker’s speech was a welcome change following the tension between the business community and City Hall during the Kenney administration.

“She’s the dynamo we’ve all been waiting for, and she hit a home run today,” said Jacobson, who heads a communications firm.

The mayor notably didn’t say whether she intends to continue the city’s two-decade project of incrementally reducing taxes on wages and businesses — one of the Chamber’s key priorities — saying that past cuts to those taxes have “made Philadelphia a more attractive place to live, work, and play.”

On the campaign trail, Parker said she favors continued cuts to the wage tax and wants to reduce Philadelphia’s dependence on it. But the tax — 3.75% for Philly residents and 3.44% for people who work in the city but live elsewhere — is the city’s largest revenue source, and Parker has said officials should not rush to reduce it, given that resources are needed to improve services.

She reiterated Wednesday that she wants to revive an effort to tax commercial real estate at higher rates than residential. To do so, the state would have to amend its constitution, which requires tax rates be applied equally to all people subject to a given tax. Such an amendment would be a massive political lift involving approval from Harrisburg lawmakers and voters across the state.

Parker also highlighted her promise to “clean and green” the city and said her administration is planning to expand PHL Taking Care of Business, a program that funds jobs for residents to beautify commercial corridors that she spearheaded when she was a member of City Council.

» READ MORE: Mayor Cherelle Parker pledges crackdown on quality-of-life issues

She announced that Seattle-based Amazon has agreed to donate $100,000 to the program and implored other businesses to follow suit.

“If you want to see order return and you contribute to PHL TCB, it’s going to help us hire more cleaning ambassadors to good jobs,” she said. “Your support and partnership in this area is what we need to help move us a little further.”

Parker also spoke about her administration’s efforts to improve public safety, the hallmark issue of her historic mayoral campaign. She said new Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel and Chief Public Safety Director Adam Geer are developing “a holistic public safety strategy” that aims to build trust in communities most affected by crime.

She vowed to address such “quality-of-life” crimes as retail theft and illegal ATV usage, and she said conditions in the city’s Kensington neighborhood, home to a large open-air drug market, are “unacceptable.” She said her administration plans to unveil a strategy to address the neighborhood by her 100th day in office, which falls in early April.

“[If] you say to yourself, ‘well, I think it lacks compassion,’ I want you to know that the status quo for me in Kensington is unacceptable, that help is on the way,” she said. “We’ll do it with the voices and hopes of the people who actually live in Kensington on our minds first.”

And Parker emphasized her message of unity, asking the room: “Will you work with me to make our city shine?”

“If we are all working collaboratively, there is no problem facing the city of Philadelphia that we cannot solve together,” she said. “No problem.”