DC 33 members will vote on the union’s tentative deal with the city this week. Here’s what to know.

This week, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33 will vote on whether they will accept the tentative agreement the union reached with the city of Philadelphia, which ended their eight-day strike last week.

Around 4 a.m. on July 9, DC 33 leadership and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration struck a three-year tentative deal that, among other things, would provide members with a 3% wage increase each year of the contract. This was close to Parker’s proposal for wages and fell short of the 5% that DC 33 was striking for.

“The strike is over, and nobody’s happy,” DC 33 president Greg Boulware told reporters after the tentative agreement was reached. “We felt our clock was running out.”

But the entirety of the contract hinges on ratification from membership, and if a majority of members vote against it — the union and the city could be back at square one.

Here’s what to know about DC 33’s ratification vote on the tentative agreement:

Members of DC 33 can participate in in-person ratification voting in the cafeteria at the union’s headquarters in West Philadelphia from Monday until Sunday according to DC 33’s Instagram account.

From Monday to Friday, voting will be held 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

To vote, members will need to present valid identification.

The contract is retroactive to July 1 but only takes effect after members ratify the deal.

According to the term sheet for the tentative agreement released by the union last week, wages — the main sticking point during negotiations — are set to increase 3% each year for three years. It also includes a onetime bonus of $1,500, before taxes. Crossing guards and part-time workers will receive a prorated bonus.

The agreement will also establish a fifth pay-scale step, and a third pay-scale step for school crossing guards in the union.

In terms of healthcare, DC 33’s Health & Welfare Fund will continue to be under union ownership, but the city will continue paying $1,500 per employee per month to the fund, not $1,700 like the union had initially proposed.

Members would also be able to take six uncertified sick days — up from five — in a 12-month period before being placed on an excessive sick leave list. After three uncertified sick days, employees will receive a warning. Workers would also have less restrictions on using sick days to take care of sick or disabled dependents in their household.

For funeral/bereavement leave, members will be able to take four days of leave for the death of a close family member, and one day of leave in the event of the death of other family members.

After the seven-day voting period closes, votes will be counted on July 21 and will be made available the same day, according to DC 33’s Instagram account.

For the tentative deal to be ratified, 51% of membership needs to vote in the affirmative.

If a majority of DC 33 members votes down the tentative agreement, leadership will go right back to the bargaining table for a new round of negotiations, but that does not necessarily mean the strike will resume, said Francis Ryan, a Rutgers University labor historian who has written a book about DC 33.

The union would not need to hold a second strike authorization vote, though. It’s also possible for members to continue working without a renewed contract, but then they would not receive the contract benefits — such as the wage increases — until the terms are ratified by members.

Boulware, the DC 33 president, told reporters that going on strike “potentially could happen” if the tentative deal is not ratified, noting that “a lot of our members were absolutely steadfast with this whole situation and I’m very grateful for that.”

It’s unclear what the consensus is among DC 33’s rank-and-file members about the tentative agreement and how the vote will ultimately shake out.

A quick glance through DC 33’s social media pages shows that some members and allies are unhappy with the tentative deal, while others recognize the circumstances that caused leadership to agree to the deal, like injunctions from the city ordering members back to work during the strike.

“Historically, the ones who are most unhappy with the contract tend to be the ones who speak most immediate,” Ryan said, but he thinks it will likely be a “pretty close vote” regardless of the outcome.

“I won’t be surprised if they reject it, and I also won’t be surprised if it goes through,” Ryan said.

Boulware told reporters he is not making a recommendation to members on how to vote.

“Their ask to me was to go up, stand up and fight and try to get as much as we could get out of this — and we did accomplish quite a bit — but if they feel like it’s unsatisfactory to their needs, then they have that voice to be able to say so,” Boulware said.

The last time DC 33 membership ratified a tentative agreement after a strike was in July 1986 after 20 days of a trash-filled work stoppage.

Ryan said toward the end of the strike, DC 33 membership and top leadership were divided, and a lot of that had to do with how then-DC 33 president Earl Stout was acting at that time.

“He was making demands on top of the wage offer that had already been granted, and a lot of people started to question why they were still on strike,” Ryan said, noting that Stout wanted $48 million for the union’s Health & Welfare Fund.

And as city injunctions started rolling in at that time, members also started questioning whether they would be comfortable defying court orders for the sake of the strike.

“Once you start getting these injunctions, they can send you to jail, they’re like, ‘Well, do we have to go to jail for this?’” Ryan said.

At a DC 33 membership meeting on July 20, 1986, members voted to go back to work and thousands returned the following day, according to archives from The Inquirer in 1986. On July 22, contract talks about wages between DC 33 and the city resumed and a “tentative settlement” was announced.

Two weeks later, on Aug. 3, 1986, only 300 of the 12,884 members of DC 33 showed up to the Civic Center to vote on the contract, which was ultimately approved, according to newspaper accounts. Many workers who voted for the contract were not happy with the deal or how it was negotiated and believed the low turnout of the vote should send a message to union leadership and to the city.

Ryan said in-person ratification voting held over several days is not unusual, but it’s different from the old-school style which typically consisted of membership gathering in an auditorium with leadership onstage explaining the terms of the agreement.

But there’s one major thing that’s changed since 1986: the use of social media. DC 33 is using social media to get out messaging on the tentative agreement to their members, and it’s likely there is also internal communication among membership and leadership about the deal, Ryan said.

And an in-person voting period over several days will bring members from all over the city together to spur some impromptu conversations about the agreement.

“It allows people from all over the city, all the various neighborhoods of the city, to come down to a relatively centralized location and be able to cast their vote, and there also talk to other union members, maybe from different locals of the union, and find out what they’re thinking,” Ryan said.