Trash piles up at a garbage collection site, Thursday, July 3, 2025, in Philadelphia. [AP Photo\/Matt Slocum]<\/p>\n
As 9,000 Philadelphia city workers near the end of their first week on strike in the sixth largest city in America, there are increasing signs that the city government and the bureaucrats in AFSCME District Council 33 have become nervous about the growing support the strike has received.<\/p>\n
On Friday, workers rallied throughout the city as their strike impacted the Welcome America Fourth of July festival<\/a>. The event\u2019s concert finale was abruptly cut short when rapper LL Cool J and R&B singer Jazmine Sullivan both refused to perform, citing the ongoing strike as their reason.<\/p>\n \u201cThe show abruptly ended around 9 p.m. as DJ Hollywood left the stage in what became an awkward pre-fireworks interlude,\u201d wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer of what remained of the event after its headlining acts pulled out. As a result, \u201cThe already sparse audience scattered to get a better view of the fireworks, or to go home.\u201d<\/p>\n Philadelphia city workers\u2014including librarians, water department and sanitation, have been on strike since July 1. They are demanding an increased wage as well as defense of overtime benefits and healthcare.\u00a0<\/p>\n The city, run by Democratic mayor Cherelle Parker, is demanding workers take \u201cfiscally responsible\u201d poverty-level pay, consisting of about an 8 percent wage increase over three years. Blue collar city workers on average receive about $46,000 a year, about $15,000 lower than the city\u2019s median income. According to SmartAssetabout, it is half of what a comfortable living wage for the city is.<\/p>\n In addition, the city is demanding the workers give up the rights to overtime pay on the weekend and other benefits.<\/p>\n There is powerful support for the strike both across the city and the country. Conditions are rapidly emerging to make the strike the center of a broader working class offensive in defense of living conditions and public programs.<\/p>\n To activate this, workers must organize rank-and-file committees to link up with workers across the city and the country to prepare joint action on a national scale. The Philadelphia strike is taking a stand against brutal austerity which is being imposed in every city in America through cuts to education, transit and other basic services, and at the federal level through multi-trillion dollar tax cuts for the wealthy alongside hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicaid and other programs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tide of public opinion from the citizens of Philadelphia has turned against the mayor,\u201d a striking city worker told the World Socialist Web Site. \u201cI\u2019m also seeing support towards DC 33 coming in from abroad and from all across the country as well.\u201d The worker said it \u201cseems overwhelming to know they align themselves with our cause.\u201d<\/p>\n The movement in the working class against inequality must link up with the growing political opposition to Trump and his enablers in the Democratic Party. The outcome of this and other struggles will be determined not just by militancy on the picket lines but to the degree that the working class emerges as the basic political force against oligarchy, dictatorship and war.<\/p>\n Workers must make a special appeal for public sector workers across Philadelphia to immediately join the strike. This includes 3,000 white collar employees whose contract expired on July 1, but, in a deliberate attempt to isolate them from their blue-collar coworkers, AFSCME extended the contract to July 14. <\/p>\n Workers at the Penn Museum have already voted to go on strike if no deal emerges before then. These workers are affiliated with AFSCME District Council 47.\u00a0<\/p>\n Additionally, 14,000 public school teachers have voted to strike<\/a> at the end of next month if no contract is agreed to. Finally, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) currently faces a \u201cdoomsday\u201d budget<\/a>, consisting of massive cuts and service rollbacks affecting the entire region.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n