PHILADELPHIA — A strike being staged by almost 10,000 metropolis staff in Philadelphia entered its second day Wednesday as a choose ordered some emergency service dispatchers and important water division workers to return to work.
Widespread Pleas Court docket Choose Sierra Thomas-Road granted the town an injunction Tuesday stating 237 out of 325 staff on the metropolis’s 911 name heart 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 stop these staff — 32 hearth dispatchers, 5 supervisors and 200 police dispatchers — from taking part within the strike throughout off-duty hours.
The choose additionally ordered some water division staff again to the job as a result of they’re important to making sure recent, 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. Throughout the day, the strikers waved indicators at visitors close to Metropolis Corridor and fashioned picket traces exterior libraries, metropolis places of work and different workplaces.
Mayor Cherelle Parker has mentioned the town would droop residential trash assortment, shut some metropolis swimming pools and shorten recreation heart hours, however vowed to maintain the town operating. 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 traditional.
In an announcement Tuesday, the mayor mentioned the town had “put its greatest provide on the desk.” Town provided 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 mentioned.
District Council 33 is the most important of 4 main unions representing metropolis staff. Union president Greg Boulware President Greg Boulware mentioned the town isn’t coming wherever near the wage will increase the union is in search of.
Union leaders, of their preliminary contract proposal, requested for 8% annual raises annually of the three-year contract, together with cost-of-living hikes and bonuses of as much as $5,000 for many who labored by the pandemic. The union additionally requested the town to pay the complete value of worker well being care, or $1,700 per particular person per 30 days.
In November, the metropolis 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 the town with out trash pickup for 3 weeks, main trash to pile up on streets, alleyways and drop-off websites.
