Workers are on strike at the Linc, Citizens Bank Park, and Wells Fargo Center

As start time approached for the Phillies’ Monday night game, workers who normally would have been inside Citizens Bank Park preparing to serve food and drinks were picketing outside of center field holding signs that read “Don’t tip scabs!” and “On Strike! At Aramark.”

Hundreds of unionized concessions workers employed at the Wells Fargo Center, Lincoln Financial Field, and Citizens Bank Park went on strike Monday. The workers have been negotiating for improved benefits and wages from their employer, Aramark.

The workers’ union, Unite Here Local 274, which represents about 1,500 Aramark workers across the three venues, encouraged fans not to purchase food or drinks from vendors inside the stadium, according to a statement shared Sunday. Instead, they suggested attendees could “tailgate or grab dinner elsewhere ahead of the game.”

The strike, announced Sunday night, was impacting the stadiums by as early as 11 a.m. Monday.

Over a dozen deliveries of food and beverages arriving to South Philadelphia sports stadiums on Monday weren’t fulfilled, according to union staff attorney, Dermot Delude-Dix. Teamsters Joint Council No. 53 has sanctioned the strike, meaning that union truck drivers can decline to cross the picket line and not make a delivery.

At 5 p.m., long lines of fans stretched outside the third-base gate entrance, as people waited to enter the park. Some who carried bags of food said they did so to help the union, while others said they brought sandwiches and water to avoid paying stadium prices.

”It’s kind of both,” said Roger Gloetzner, of Levittown, as he held a bag of hoagies.

The Phillies anticipated no disruption in services to fans and said all concessions would be open Monday, according to a team spokesperson. Aramark said it had a contingency plan in place to deal with the absence of workers.

“We are committed to delivering an outstanding fan experience, and our contingency plans will ensure that all food and beverage and retail merchandise services for tonight’s game will be open and available to guests as usual,” said Chris Collom, vice president for Aramark’s corporate communications. “Going forward, we intend to continue to bargain in good faith for the benefit of all involved.”

The strike Monday was not a one-day event; it will continue until further notice, according to a union spokesperson. All three stadiums have events scheduled for the upcoming week.

The Phillies have a three-game series scheduled Monday through Wednesday at Citizens Bank Park, and ticket sales for each of the team’s three games against the Cubs have topped 40,000.

Electro-pop star Charli XCX is scheduled to perform Wednesday at the Wells Fargo Center. The union has reached out to the artist’s team asking them to urge fans to support the strike by boycotting Aramark vendors, according to Mat Wranovics, customer organizer at Unite Here Local 274. The union has yet to hear back.

The Eagles don’t play at the Linc again until Oct. 13.

Efforts to reach a spokesperson for Comcast Spectacor, the company that owns the Wells Fargo Center and the Flyers, were not successful Monday.

Many of the unionized Aramark workers are employed at more than one stadium, and the union is seeking standardized wages and benefits across the Linc, Citizens Bank Park, and the Wells Fargo Center.

Fewer than 100 Aramark workers with the union have year-round health care across all of the stadiums, according to a union organizer, and the workers’ most recent contracts expired in March.

Heather Innaurato, a shop steward with Unite Here, was at the picket line on Monday.

“I love my job and I wouldn’t change it, but how Aramark is treating us is totally unfair,” Innaurato said. “I only make $9 an hour, and I’ve been here for 12 years. We deserve way more than what they’re offering us in these negotiations.”

All three stadiums have been on strike watch since Sept. 6, when workers employed at the Linc passed a strike authorization vote. Well Fargo Center workers passed their strike authorization vote in March, and the Citizen Bank Park workers voted on Sept. 1.

Wells Fargo Center workers walked off the job twice in April, and in June, Aramark union workers carried out a “civil disobedience” action outside of the Aramark headquarters in Center City, where at least 45 demonstrators were arrested. Inflatable “Fat Cat” was present at the action, as well as on Monday.

Monday’s strike comes as talks have been ongoing about the Sixers building a new arena in Center City. Also this year, the Comcast Spectacor and the Phillies announced a partnership to turn some of the Stadium District’s boundless parking lots into a dynamic, year-round sports-and-entertainment complex.

“Before we even talk about building a new arena, we need to make sure that stadium food service jobs are good jobs,” Tiffani Davis, an Aramark concessions worker employed at all three stadiums, said in a statement shared by the union Sunday. “Year-round work should come with year-round benefits like health care and family-sustaining wages.”

Chinatown activists who are fighting the planned construction of the new Sixers arena voiced support for the workers.

“We will have their back, as we keep asking our elected officials: Who is this city for? The billionaires or its people?” said Mohan Seshadri, executive director of the Asian Pacific Islander Political Alliance and a leader in the Save Chinatown Coalition. “Unite Here has fought for years to turn these part-time and seasonal jobs — precisely the kind of jobs arenas offer — into family-sustaining jobs.”

Last week Mayor Cherelle L. Parker announced her support for the $1.55 billion Sixers arena, which would stand at 10th and Market Streets on Chinatown’s southern edge. The project — and its corresponding legislation — still must make its way through City Council.

The Sixers say the development promises jobs, tax revenue and business growth, and would be a catalyst to revive sagging Market Street East.