Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration and AFSCME DC 33 met for the second time since the strike began. There’s still no deal.

Union president Greg Boulware stepped out of a conference room in a community college campus in West Philadelphia and sat down to huddle with the team he had assembled to tangle with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration.

From the sitting area on Saturday evening, he overlooked a classic Philadelphia cityscape, with rowhouses in the foreground, the Center City skyline behind them, and a Market-Frankford Line train rumbling by to his left. It was as if the scene was set to underscore the gravity of what they were discussing: how and when to end Philly’s first city worker strike since 1986.

But as the sun set on the fifth day of the strike, the two sides once again broke off negotiations without a deal for a new contract, and the more than 9,000 members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33 were still on strike.

“Our negotiating team will continue working earnestly in discussions with District Council 33 in efforts to reach agreement on a fair and fiscally responsible contract that both the hardworking members and the city deserve,” Parker spokesperson Joe Grace said earlier Saturday.

Boulware declined to comment.

DC 33 is Philly’s largest and lowest-paid collective bargaining unit, representing frontline workers across city government including trash collectors, street pavers, and 911 dispatchers.

There was increasing hope that a deal could be in the offing because Boulware on Friday sent the administration a new proposal that included a softening of his position on the critical issue of wages.

It was the first time since the strike began at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday that either side had moved.

Parker had previously offered a three-year contract with annual raises of no more than 3% that she said would cost the city $115 million. Boulware had previously proposed a four-year contract with raises of 5% per year.

It was not clear what his updated offer entailed or whether the city had made its own new proposal.

Saturday’s talks, at the Community College of Philadelphia Career and Advanced Technology Center, marked the second formal negotiating session since the strike began.

Meanwhile, Bob Brady, the longtime chair of the Democratic City Committee, on Saturday amped up the pressure for the two sides to reach a deal, calling on both sides to “check your freaking ego at the door.”

“It’s hot out there, the trash is collecting, and with the trash comes bugs and rats and roaches and all that kind of stuff,” Brady said in an interview. “I hope they can get this thing done, and I’m pretty optimistic after texting with Greg.”

A former U.S. representative who has chaired the party since 1986, Brady has strong ties to organized labor and has been an ally of Parker’s.

He said Saturday that he has been in regular contact with Boulware throughout the strike, but has not been able to reach Parker — a narrative the mayor’s team immediately contested.

“I called and I texted and I didn’t get any response back,” Brady said. “That’s up to them. I just offer help.”

Parker “has a great deal of respect and admiration for Democratic Party Chairman Brady,” Grace said, but she “has not heard from Chairman Brady during this strike.”

As the DC 33 saga grinds on, the city is also negotiating for a new contract with AFSCME District Council 47, which represents roughly 3,000 white-collar city workers, such as professionals and supervisors, and is now holding a strike-authorization vote of its own.

DC 47 is an umbrella union, and its structure is complicated. The council is made up of nine locals, but only two represent Philadelphia city workers under the executive branch. (The others represent workers in the courts and at educational and nonprofit institutions.)

And of those two municipal unions, only one is legally permitted to go on strike: Local 2187, which represents administrative assistants and professionals. The other, Local 2186, represents supervisors in various city agencies.

DC 47 leaders have been conspicuously quiet during the DC 33 strike. Both unions’ previous contracts expired Tuesday, when the larger union took to the streets. DC 47 opted to sign a two-week extension to allow talks to continue.

Members of the white-collar union cannot legally join their AFSCME colleagues on the picket line until after their current deal ends and their strike-authorization vote concludes July 15. But it is far from clear DC 47’s leaders are eager to join the work stoppage.

“In response to the strong interest from our membership in moving forward with a strike authorization, we want to make sure that every member can stay informed and participate in the voting process,” Local 2187 president Jesse Jordan wrote to his members last week in an email, which has not been previously reported.

Jordan did not respond to a request for comment, and DC 47 president April Giggetts and vice president Robert Harris did not respond to several requests throughout the week.

“Let’s remain strong, informed, and united,” Jordan wrote to his members.