{"id":53388,"date":"2025-07-10T06:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T06:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/53388\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T06:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T06:16:09","slug":"philadelphia-workers-union-reach-deal-to-end-strike-halting-residential-trash-pickup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/53388\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia workers union reach deal to end strike halting residential trash pickup"},"content":{"rendered":"

A union representing thousands of city workers in Philadelphia and the city have reached a deal to end\u00a0a more than weeklong strike\u00a0that halted residential curbside trash pickup<\/a> and affected other services, officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Nearly 10,000 blue-collar employees from District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees\u00a0walked off the job July 1, seeking better pay and benefits after negotiations with the city failed.<\/p>\n

The tentative agreement gives workers a 3% raise in each of the next three years, far from the union\u2019s quest for 5% annual pay hikes.<\/p>\n

Piles of garbage pile up at a collection site in Philadelphia on July 9, 2025. AP<\/p>\n

Half of the members will get an additional 2% raise through an added level on the pay scale, Mayor Cherelle Parker said, and most members will qualify by the end of the contract.<\/p>\n

Residential trash collection will resume Monday, according to Parker, who asked for \u201cgrace\u201d as pools, libraries, recreation centers and other services get back to normal.<\/p>\n

District Council 33 is the largest of four major unions representing city workers. Its membership includes 911 dispatchers, trash collectors, water department workers and many others. Police and firefighters weren\u2019t part of the strike.<\/p>\n

Parker said that over her four-year term, DC33 workers will have received a total pay bump of 14%, including a 5% one-year hike she gave all four unions after taking office last year.<\/p>\n

Many residents seemed to support boosting the pay of DC33 workers, even as trash piled up in neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

A woman drops off trash at a garbage collection site on July 3, 2025. AP<\/p>\n

A man throws a bag of garbage into a bin as trash piles up on the streets of Philadelphia during the strike. AP<\/p>\n

The union says they earn an average $46,000 a year.<\/p>\n

Union members must still ratify the agreement.<\/p>\n

Rich Henkels, an actor who just moved into the city, called the settlement \u201cdisappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe announced raises do nothing for the workers and their families, as the increases will be less than the rate of inflation,\u201d said Henkels, 64.<\/p>\n

Trash overflows into the streets of Philadelphia on July 8, 2025. AP<\/p>\n

A front-end loader was brought in to clean up the collection sites overflowing with garbage in Philadelphia on July 7, 2025. AP<\/p>\n

Garbage fills up a container as the Philadelphia skyline is seen in the background on July 3, 2025.. AP<\/p>\n

The settlement was announced early on the ninth day of the strike, a period that included\u00a0the Fourth of July\u00a0holiday weekend.<\/p>\n

Some of the 60 drop-off centers that the city had designated for residential trash\u00a0were overflowing.<\/p>\n

Most libraries and some pools across the city were closed, and recreation centers operated on reduced hours.<\/p>\n

Last week, judges had sided with the city in ordering some critical employees back to work at the city\u2019s 911 centers, water department and airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did the best we could with the circumstances we had in front of us,\u201d union President Greg Boulware told reporters in brief remarks Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A union representing thousands of city workers in Philadelphia and the city have reached a deal to end\u00a0a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":53389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,240,39748,1448,2830,1311,39749,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-53388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-deals","10":"tag-labor-strikes","11":"tag-pa","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-unions","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-us-news","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114827479221533641","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}