A municipal sanitation worker collects trash in Philadelphia, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. [AP Photo\/Matt Rourke]<\/p>\n
For the first time in nearly four decades, Philadelphia\u2019s largest municipal workers\u2019 union, AFSCME District Council 33 (DC 33), is on strike. The work stoppage is sending shockwaves through city operations and daily life.\u00a0It is the first strike of municipal city workers since 1986.<\/p>\n
More than 9,000 city employees have walked off the job, including sanitation workers, water department staff, 911 dispatchers, city mechanics and school crossing guards. The strike\u2019s immediate impact is being felt across a wide range of essential services.<\/p>\n
The strike began at 12:01 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, after last-minute negotiations between the union and Mayor Cherelle Parker\u2019s administration failed to produce a new contract. At the heart of the dispute are wages, pension improvements and healthcare benefits, with union leaders arguing that the city\u2019s offer\u2014an 8 percent raise over three years\u2014falls far short of what workers need to keep up with Philadelphia\u2019s rising cost of living.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DC 33 had demanded an 8 percent annual raise, citing that many members earn an average of $46,000 a year, well below the estimated $60,000 needed for a single person to live in the city.<\/p>\n
But it is critical that striking municipal workers view themselves as the first wave in a massive class movement against the entrenched power of the corporate oligarchy, which rules through both Trump and through local Democratic Party administrations in cities across the country. Through unprecedented cuts to public services at every level, they are seeking to impose the cost of a growing economic crisis on the backs of the working class.<\/p>\n
The strike emerges as the first in a wave of class struggle throughout the region. It comes weeks after the city of Philadelphia saw upwards of 80,000 people protesting against the Trump administration\u2019s attacks on democracy and immigrant workers. The protest was part of \u201cNo Kings<\/a>\u201d day, one of the largest single day protests in American history.\u00a0<\/p>\n Reporters from the World Socialist Web Site attended rallies in dozens of cities throughout the country, issuing calls<\/a> for protesters to mobilize \u201cthe immense strength of the working class \u2026 against Trump\u2019s coup in a general strike\u2014the utilization of the power of the workers, rooted in the process of production, to bring production to a halt.\u201d<\/p>\n The conditions are increasingly favorable for such a movement to emerge. Last week, 14,000 School District of Philadelphia (SDP) educators and staff voted by 94 percent to go on strike if their contract lapses in August without a deal on the table.<\/p>\n Contracts for 3,000 law enforcement and public white collar workers affiliated with AFSCME District Council 47 also expired on Tuesday, although they are bound by law from striking. <\/p>\n Municipal workers across the country are fighting massive unprecedented cuts, as resources are being drained to pay for Wall Street and war. The Chicago transit system is preparing a \u201cdoomsday\u201d budget which would cut service by 40 percent, while the school district is threatening to rip up a new teachers\u2019 contract for lack funds. The New York City transit system has projected shortfalls of up to $10 billion and earlier this year predicted a \u201csummer of hell\u201d without new funding.<\/p>\n Los Angeles is forecasting a $1 billion deficit for next year; San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego have deficits in the hundreds of millions, Washington D.C. has lost its AAA credit rating. The transit systems and school districts in these cities also report major funding shortfalls.<\/p>\n The city of Philadelphia is also enacting vicious attacks on the working class population. On Thursday, June 26, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) adopted its own \u201cdoomsday budget,<\/a>\u201d which would slash public transit services in half. In addition to thousands of transit workers being laid off, the loss of services will fundamentally impact working class people.<\/p>\n On Monday, the office of Democratic Mayor Cherelle Parker held a press conference to address concerns regarding the halting of vital services. The mayor used the meeting to declare that the city had made a \u201chistoric\u201d but \u201cfiscally responsible\u201d offer to raise municipal worker pay by a total of 13 percent over four years.<\/p>\n The mayor listed other supposedly incredible proposals, such as an additional pay step in city workers\u2019 wages, \u201caligning DC 33\u2019s pay plan with other city bargaining units.\u201d The majority of her address was spent promoting the city\u2019s new budget for the fiscal year 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n Parker cited her \u201cHousing Opportunities Made Easy (H.O.M.E.)\u201d initiative, which includes a proposal to create and preserve 30,000 new units of affordable housing. This initiative, she said, was designed \u201call \u2026 with people like our DC 33 members in mind.\u201d Municipal workers in the city of Philadelphia are required to have lived inside the city for a year before hiring for a city job.<\/p>\n The World Socialist Web Site has noted<\/a> that Parker\u2019s budget was a list of \u201cpro-business and tax cuts.\u201d It cited Parker\u2019s own comments declaring it was designed to \u201csignal to businesses that they could invest in the city in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n The Philadelphia Housing Authority has stated that the city would require $6.3 billion simply to redevelop 13,000 already existing housing units, while over 100,000 people are currently waiting for available homes. Parker\u2019s plan offers only $2 billion total for housing.<\/p>\n Parker\u2019s real attitude toward the city\u2019s employees was revealed in her press comments when she claimed, without evidence, that there had been reports of \u201cproperty vandalism \u2026 associated with this work stoppage\u201d and threatened police action against workers seeking to block scabs. Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel likewise asserted that they \u201ccannot allow individuals to vandalize and harm and destroy.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, the strike has massive public support among the city\u2019s population, with hundreds of declarations of solidarity on the DC 33 social media pages. On the city of Philadelphia\u2019s subreddit, a comment with over 400 likes states that the individual wants to \u201cdrop my trash at city hall.\u201d Another with 200 likes suggests that garbage be dropped off at the mayor\u2019s house.<\/p>\n The mass support for the strike is even more significant given that the stoppage is impacting vital services, such as trash collection, public swimming pools and water treatment amid one of the hottest years on record<\/a>. Last week, the city reached temperatures as hot as 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47.2 degrees Celsius).<\/p>\n Under these conditions, the bureaucrats of the city unions are engaged in a criminal effort to undermine the level of solidarity among the working class throughout the city. The AFSCME DC 33 leadership has purposefully sought to string its already criminally underpaid members with a miserable weekly strike pay of $200.\u00a0<\/p>\n The union is claiming that nothing can be done given that the DC 33 strike fund is less than $4.2 million. However, the district council has $29 million in various loans and assets, and national AFSCME union has over $300 million. Workers should demand that these assets, financed through their dues money, be used to finance a major increase in strike pay to insure that they are provisioned for a protracted struggle.<\/p>\n The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT), which saw its members vote near unanimously to strike<\/a> two weeks ago when their contract concludes in August, has sought to downplay its members\u2019 strike vote, appearing on stage with officials of the SDP as they demanded state funding to proclaim \u201cthough we may disagree at times,\u201d the city\u2019s administrators \u201cwant what our members want: Appropriately staffed and resourced schools where children and communities are able to thrive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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