PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) —The eight-day strike by Philadelphia city workers ended though of a combination of bad conditions, lost wages, court orders and the city’s refusal to increase the cost of a new contract but, in an interview with KYW Newsradio, District Council 33 president Greg Boulware said the strike accomplished more than it might seem.
“Happily I can say there are no concessions in our contract so that was a victory in itself,” he said. “It was a victory in bringing our members together. It was a victory in bringing notoriety to a lot of the jobs our members do.”
Boulware said he was grateful for all the support the union received and disappointed it didn’t have a bigger impact.
“Unfortunately, it didn’t help in the negotiating room. The city was dead-stuck on not moving off of any of the financial terms,” he said.
Boulware had initially been seeking a four-year contract with eight percent raises each year. He quickly came down to five percent and settled for three percent. A number of factors went into the decision, he said.
First was his concern for his members’ health and safety on the picket line.
“The first two nights we had torrential rains, then followed by a heat wave,” he said. He noted the picketers never lost heart but he knew it was taking a toll. “Folks were looking weary. Days of being out there was wearing on people.”
He also knew his members, more than any other city employees, are least able to go without income for very long. Part of his pitch for higher raises was that they live paycheck to paycheck.
The city could simply wait them out.
But even more likely was that they would be ordered back to work by Judge Sierra Thomas Street, who granted every back-to-work and injunction request the city filed. On the very first day of the strike, she deemed 911 operators and some water department employees essential to public safety and barred strikers from mass picketing, denying them an important tool in making the strike effective.
Faced with all these factors, Boulware found he could not budge Mayor Cherelle Parker’s negotiating team on the cost of the contract.
The city calculated it could afford $115 Million dollars for the contract and even the quarter percent increase the union won in the final negotiating session will be off-set by a month “holiday,” with no contribution to the union health and welfare fund.
Boulware said he did move the city off of some of its demands, including work rule changes that would end overtime by seniority and allow discipline with no investigation. He said the union also rejected the city’s attempt to administer aspects of the health and welfare fund and add a surcharge on employee contributions for smokers. He said the city had also demanded but didn’t get a new leave time calculation that would have reduced the number of new hires’ vacation days.
One thing Boulware did not ask for that the city offered and that will boost the pay of most DC 33 members is a fifth step increase in wages. Employees at the top of the pay scale will get an additional two percent increase. The city says half the union will be eligible next year when it takes effect and 80% of members will get it in the third year of the contract.
The $1,500 signing bonus also amounts to about three percent of the average DC 33 member’s salary.
The Mayor has repeatedly said the deal is fair and fiscally responsible. She no doubt also has her eye on new contracts for the other three municipal unions. District Council 47, the white collar workers union, is negotiating now. Uniformed employee contracts will go to arbitration and arbitrators in the past have seen the deals with the other municipal unions as the floor, not the ceiling, for police and fire fighters.
While the mayor clearly came out ahead in the strike, she may have lost some public support in the process. Still, with 2 ½ years left in her term, it’s unlikely to affect her chances for re-election.
Parker’s former campaign manager, Sincere Harris, now a Deputy Mayor and the lead negotiator, insisted there was no winner in the strike.
“We are glad to be bringing the family back together,” Harris said. “We’re going to work to heal some of the divide and heal some of those wounds that were opened up in this process.”
She said the city would continue to find “pathways for salary growth and career growth for the men and women of District Council 33.”
Boulware said he is working on that too– looking at upgrading some job titles and strengthening some worker protections outside the contract.
“District Council 33 is going to continue pushing for the dignity and respect and wages that our men and women deserve,” he said.