Philly’s largest union for city workers floats possible strike over contract dispute with Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration

Philadelphia’s largest union for city workers is at loggerheads with Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration over contract negotiations, and its leaders are considering calling a strike authorization vote in late October.

The more than 9,000 city employees represented by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees District Council 33 have been working without a contract since July, when their last deal, negotiated under former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration, expired.

The main sticking point is that Parker is asking D.C. 33, which represents blue-collar city employees such as sanitation workers, to agree to a one-year deal that largely extends the terms of the previous contract with a 4.4% raise and a one-time bonus. The other three major municipal unions, representing police officers, firefighters, and white-collar workers such as supervisors, have all agreed to short-term contracts, but D.C. 33 is insisting on a traditional multiyear deal.

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There is risk for unions in signing short-term contracts. The city’s finances are relatively strong at the moment, and the economy is growing. If a union agrees to a one-year deal and a recession occurs during negotiations for a subsequent multiyear deal, the unions may not be able to secure significant raises or benefit increases.

“That is a big part of the motivation — the uncertainty of future financial prospects for the city, and the city then turning and utilizing that as a tool for negotiations,” said Greg Boulware, D.C. 33′s president. “We’re not trying to be unreasonable. We’re trying to make sure our people that provide services to the citizens of Philadelphia every single day feel like they’re being shown some respect and dignity.”

But there’s also risk for Boulware, who won the union’s presidency in June after a contentious election in which he was on the opposite side of Parker’s top allies in the union and campaigned in part on securing a multiyear deal. The mayor has put raises and bonuses on the table that would amount to the union’s highest single-year pay bump in decades, and D.C. 33 members may become restless working without the increases that their coworkers in other unions have received.

Chief Deputy Mayor Sinceré Harris said Parker, who took office in January, is a “proud supporter of the men and women in labor.” Parker is seeking short-term deals because she is running “a brand-new administration getting our feet on the ground” and because she wants to safeguard the city’s finances, Harris said.

“It is just taking the fiscal health of the city that allows that flexibility while you are standing up a new administration,” Harris said. “That’s the grace that the mayor asks for, and that’s an agreement that we’ve been able to reach with every single union in our municipal workforce.”

Boulware said the union’s officers formally met with the city’s negotiating team for the first time Thursday and were insulted to find that administration officials had not seriously considered a 17-page proposal for a four-year contract that the union had sent months earlier. The proposal also includes additional pay increases, a relaxation of the residency rule that requires most city workers to live in Philadelphia, and more lucrative pension plans.

He said he’s asking the administration to send a meaningful response to D.C. 33′s proposal by early next week. If that doesn’t happen, he plans to schedule an Oct. 30 general membership meeting in which he will ask for authorization to call for a strike if talks don’t progress.

Despite that threat, it’s unlikely that city workers will walk off the job anytime soon.

“It’s just a progression in a way, and also a way to let the city understand that we are very serious about our position,” Boulware said.

Mayors traditionally negotiate four-year contracts with the city’s four major municipal unions at the beginning of their terms. There have been one-year deals in the past, usually due to an emergency that causes uncertainty for the city’s financial outlook.

Kenney, for instance, negotiated four-year deals when he took office in 2016. But at the beginning of his second term in 2020, which coincided with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, he pushed for one-year deals as the city tried to understand a new economic reality.

For now, D.C. 33 is less open to Parker’s reasons.

“The City has explained that its purpose … is to enable the Mayor and her administration to make a suitable transition which will enable her to work with us to arrive at a full agreement after due study of all relevant issues,” D.C. 33′s contract proposal reads. “After thorough and lengthy discussions we have determined that the best result for the members in the long term is to agree to a four-year Contract that will provide stability.”