UPDATED: 4:38 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The stakes are high for both sides as contract talks resume between Philadelphia officials and striking blue collar city workers.
With the strike entering its second week, District Council 33 members have begun to feel the financial impact of striking with the loss of a paycheck — among a workforce that lives paycheck to paycheck.
“They have to decide whether they want to put food on the table or pay the bills,” said DC33 Vice President Anton Little.
One big pitch that DC33 President Greg Boulware has made for bigger raises is that his members are the most underpaid of any city union.
“Every day I get people calling me about their hardships and their situation,” said Boulware. “I’m thinking, ‘Why we gotta go through that in the sixth largest city in the country? How?’”
But that also means the members are likely to have fewer savings to get them through a prolonged strike. That was a major factor when workers chose to go back to work in 1986 after a 20-day strike. They did win a 5% raise but they had lost 6% of their income so it took more than a year to recoup.
Union leaders said their members’ resolve is still strong and supporters have also sought to mitigate worker losses this time around. The Philadelphia Federal Credit Union is offering one percent loans. AFSCME International made what president Lee Saunders called a "sizeable donation" to the strike fund and DC33 has set up a web page to accept strike fund donations from the public. It's also accepting water for picketers and other non-monetary donations.
“We will help you win this fight. We have got to make our voices heard every single day,” he said to DC33 members on Monday.
City officials said they have not yet calculated the daily cost of the strike, with overtime and contractors keeping Philly’s essential services going. A more significant loss, though, may be in Mayor Cherelle Parker’s political capital. Labor helped elect her and she describes herself as pro-union but picketers are taunting her, with some heard to sing, “If you can’t stand the smell, blame it on Cherelle.”
Labor leaders, some elected officials and sympathetic citizens have supported the strikers over the mayor, which she said is less important to her than guarding the city’s fiscal stability.
“If that means I’m a one-term mayor,” she told reporters last week, “then so be it.”