What makes the DC33 strike a tough nut to crack

As a matter of personal orientation, I am reflexively pro-union.

My father was a union organizer, and became president of an Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America local. He was devoted to the welfare of his members, mostly minority women.

I joined The Newspaper Guild at my first journalism job in 1959 in New York, became an activist in that union in Philadelphia 13 years later and helped lead two strikes against our owner.

So my starting point is, I am with the union.

Having stated my bias, I then look at the facts — taking into account what the workers earn, how much they want, and the city’s ability to pay.

Before getting to the present, it helps to understand the past. District Council 33 has grievances going all the way back to Ed Rendell’s mayoralty, when he used the city financial crisis to blackjack concessions out of municipal unions, including DC33. That’s 30 years ago and they’re still pissed.

I often complain about the Inquirer’s one-sided reporting, but in this case (my Daily News colleague) Sean Collins Walsh’s reporting goes back 30 years and meticulously walks readers through both backroom city politics, and internal warfare within the union. 

It is a terrific piece of reporting, and I hope you are not stopped by a paywall.

In a nutshell, DC33 feels screwed by most establishment Democrats, and that’s why it endorsed outsider Jeff Brown for mayor in 2023, creating antagonism with Mayor Cherelle Parker.

For her part, in a fiery news conference, Parker bellowed, “You can call me a one-term mayor. . . But I will not put the fiscal stability of the city of Philadelphia in jeopardy for no one.”

As to the one-term mayor, no incumbent has ever been denied re-election since the Home Rule Charter was adopted in 1951. Wilson Goode bombed a neighborhood and got re-elected. While this is a crisis for Parker, she is in no real danger.

The real skunk at the garden party, according to a trusted source, is the city’s lead negotiator, Chief Deputy Mayor Sincere Harris, who has never negotiated a contract and has pissed off DC33.

As of Sunday afternoon, the city was offering a three-year contract with annual raises of no more than 3%. The union is demanding a four-year contract with annual raises of 5%, down from an initial ask of 8%, which was, really, completely unrealistic. 

But in negotiations, unions always open with an ask for pie in the sky. And management opens with a skinflint offer, and crying poverty.

Can we look at some facts, using Inquirer’s numbers?

The Inquirer refers to DC33 as “Philly’s largest [9,000 members] and lowest-paid collective bargaining unit, representing frontline workers,” including sanitation, where the impact of the strike is most felt, and smelled, on city streets.

They make an average of $46,000 a year, which is $2,000 less than Philadelphia's “living wage,” according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Living Wage Calculator.

Philadelphia’s average salary is around $70,000. The median income is about $35,000 (median being the line between the top and bottom halves.) 

MIT calculates the cost of living in Philadelphia as $46,381 for a single adult, $91,042, for an adult with one child.

The union’s demand would raise DC33’s annual salary after three years to $53,251.

The city’s offer would raise the average salary to $50,143.

That’s not a huge gap. The union deserves more.

Intuition tells me the difference will be split, maybe not evenly. In my experience, if the union doesn’t get the raise it wants, it won’t want a four-year contract. A signing bonus often greases the skids.

Some of the sand in the gears flows from the abrasive relationship between Mayor Parker and DC33 leader Greg Boulware.

Democratic City Committee Chairman Bob Brady, a reliable conciliator in the past, said on Saturday both sides have to “check your freaking egos at the door.” He is a proponent of locking opposing sides in a room.

There's a wrinkle this time.

Brady said he has called and texted Parker and got no response. Parker’s press secretary Joe Grace said Parker “has not heard from Chairman Brady during this strike.”

Brady provided me and others with a copy of the text he sent to Parker.