PHILADELPHIA — A strike being staged by nearly 10,000 city workers in Philadelphia entered its second day Wednesday as a decide ordered some emergency service dispatchers and important water division workers to return to work.
Widespread Pleas Court docket Decide Sierra Thomas-Avenue granted town an injunction Tuesday stating 237 out of 325 staff on the metropolis’s 911 name middle should return to work as a result of their absence creates a “clear and current hazard to risk to well being, security or welfare of the general public.” The order doesn’t forestall these staff — 32 hearth dispatchers, 5 supervisors and 200 police dispatchers — from collaborating within the strike throughout off-duty hours.
The decide additionally ordered some water division staff again to the job as a result of they’re important to making sure contemporary, clear ingesting water is out there to residents.
In search of higher pay and advantages, District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Staff introduced the strike early Tuesday, spurring almost 10,000 blue-collar staff to stroll off the job. Through the day, the strikers waved indicators at site visitors close to Metropolis Corridor and fashioned picket traces outdoors libraries, metropolis places of work and different workplaces.
Mayor Cherelle Parker has stated town would droop residential trash assortment, shut some metropolis swimming pools and shorten recreation middle hours, however vowed to maintain town working. Police and firefighters will not be on strike.
Parker, a pro-labor Democrat, promised that Fourth of July celebrations within the nation’s birthplace would go on as normal.
In an announcement Tuesday, the mayor stated town had “put its greatest provide on the desk.” Town supplied raises that quantity to 13% over her four-year time period, together with final yr’s 5% bump, and added a fifth step to the pay scale to align with different metropolis unions, she stated.
District Council 33 is the most important of 4 main unions representing metropolis staff. Union president Greg Boulware President Greg Boulware stated town isn’t coming anyplace near the wage will increase the union is searching for.
Union leaders, of their preliminary contract proposal, requested for 8% annual raises every year of the three-year contract, together with cost-of-living hikes and bonuses of as much as $5,000 for individuals who labored by the pandemic. The union additionally requested town to pay the total value of worker well being care, or $1,700 per individual per 30 days.
In November, the city transit system averted a strike when the events agreed to a one-year contract with 5% raises.
A District Council 33 trash strike in the summertime of 1986 left town with out trash pickup for 3 weeks, main trash to pile up on streets, alleyways and drop-off websites.
