{"id":910614,"date":"2026-07-03T21:15:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T21:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/910614\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T21:15:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T21:15:20","slug":"negotiations-continue-between-peco-union-looks-to-avoid-first-strike-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/910614\/","title":{"rendered":"Negotiations continue between PECO, union looks to avoid first strike in history"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The clock is ticking for PECO and its workers&#8217; union to reach a new collective bargaining agreement as more than a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/peco-workers-strike-ibew-614-philadelphia-pennsylvania\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">thousand workers prepare to go on strike<\/a> and walk off the job at midnight.<\/p>\n<p>Negotiations between the two sides continued Friday inside the Hilton Hotel in Penn&#8217;s Landing, but IBEW Local 614 President Larry Anastasi says they are no closer to a deal than they were six months ago when negotiations first began.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are working as hard as we can to get a deal done so we do not go on a strike at midnight,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We want at least industry wages and benefits, and they are well below it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A potential work stoppage also comes amid a dangerous heat wave that is already putting a strain on the power grid during the holiday weekend.<\/p>\n<p>With less than 24 hours from the strike deadline, contractors and sister utility workers have announced they will not cross the picket line.<\/p>\n<p>Anastasi says the response to emergencies such as power outages could be impacted.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Everything is hanging on a shoestring and that is typical when weather and conditions are this bad,&#8221; he said. &#8220;When we are not around, I think you will see an incredibly rapid decline of all the infrastructure in this city and unfortunately, the people that depend on electricity, which is everyone, will suffer from that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A PECO spokesperson said in a statement that the company has a comprehensive plan in place to maintain safe and reliable service under any circumstance.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have presented a strong, market-competitive proposal that includes nearly a 20% wage increase over five years, along with significantly enhanced retirement and medical benefits that address the union&#8217;s long-standing priorities,&#8221; PECO&#8217;s statement said.<\/p>\n<p>Anastasi says the union did not take the decision to strike lightly. He says if they fail to reach a deal, they&#8217;re prepared to picket for as long as possible.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Until everything is signed in front of me. I don&#8217;t have anything. And I&#8217;m anxiously waiting to have that information so we can look at it, and have it signed off until that happens, we are going on strike,&#8221; Anastasi said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The clock is ticking for PECO and its workers&#8217; union to reach a new collective bargaining agreement as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":910615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,115741,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-910614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-america","tag-pa","tag-peco","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116858121547253866","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910614","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=910614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}