During the dividing the eight -day workers’ strike in Philadelphia, which ended in an early morning with a preliminary contract, mainly according to its purposes, the mayor of Cherlle L. Parker did what he always did: she refused to submit.
Certain that her offer is “just and responsible in terms of tax” when she repeated through the whole attempt, Parker barely gave in negotiations. And she tried very much – in this controversial, employing external contractors to perform the work of striking Union members – to explain that he would not be buzzing due to public dissatisfaction in the case of falling city services, the main lever of the city union during the strike.
Parker’s relentless approach to negotiations is well known. But during the strike, it seemed that she finally stood against the equally relentless counterpart: Greg Boulware, president of the 33 American Federation of State, County and Municipal employee.
Last Monday, the day before the end of the last negotiations, which ended in the strike, Boulware said that his relationship would remain on the picket line, if he would win the contract with an annual augment in about 5%. About 36 hours later, Boulware signed a contract with which he said “no one is happy” in a relationship, giving his members a 3% augment per year.
So why was the mayor so sure that he could win by sticking to the pistols?
“District Council 33 – It’s me,” said Parker in an interview on Friday. “I am the advice of District 33. They are my peoples.”
Because of this, Parker meant two things. First of all, she believes that her modest beginnings growing up in northwestern Philadelphia gave her insight into the needs of workers with a blue collar in DC 33. Secondly, it was a recognition that DC 33-major paid four main unions of the commune and only one, in which most members are black-is a key part of its political base, with a share in connection with the union leadership.
Whether DC 33 around 9,000 members agree with this sentiment – or a preliminary contract – will be just seen. First line employees, including collectors of garbage, paving stones and employees of the Water Department, returned to work on Wednesday and vote for the ratification of the preliminary contract of the contract this week.
Strinking workers were, according to almost all accounts, prepared to continue stopping work outside Wednesday, and public support for them remained stable despite the growing “piles of Parker” garbage throughout the city.
Because of all this, Parker stood difficult. And based on her first 18 months as a mayor, this should not be a surprise. From battles about the meeting of the school board, to tax rates, to its extremely strict refund policy, Parker always refused to withdraw during her term of office and and she succeeded.
Even in the only stern failure of the administration program before the 76ers strike, which was controlled in Abandonia to build an arena in the city center-the cute-cordist was able to push an unpopular proposition through the uncomfortable city council. (In this case, it took the last minute of the intervention of the president and general director of Comcast Brian L. Roberts and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to refuse Parker her purpose.)
With a strike in the rearview mirror, Parker reflected on the most turbulent eight days of her administration in an interview with Inquirer on Friday. Here are the results from the conversation.
“As efficient as possible”
Parker news during the strike caused many questions. Why, for example, she emphasized during animated press conference on the third day of the strike This boulware salary was higher than her and the question, does the union mislead its members about its proposal?
And why did she largely stop after these comments, giving up a few opportunities to tell about the strike and omitting the planned speech during the Wawa Welcome America concert after headliners LL Cool J and Jazmin Sullivan bowed to support the relationship?
On Friday, in an interview, Parker refused to solve the message strategy. Instead, she emphasized that during the strike she focused on maintaining urban services.
“The only strategy is that we had to be as efficient as possible, when establishing a method, a system, a standard operational procedure, through the way people can lose garbage,” said Parker. “How could we ensure that police and public security and public security services are still uninterrupted throughout the city? Think about problems with water departments, doctor’s offices.”
Despite avoiding questions about her rhetoric, Parker’s answer was revealed when it comes to its general strategy. The purpose of the city strike is to bring the city to his knees so that the mayor must make concessions to end it. Parker explained to the union leaders that she did not intend to do it.
“The purpose of the strike is to cause sufficient discomfort to force them to satisfy as many demands as we can find them, but at some point the threat of an order begins,” said DC 33 lawyer Sam Spear after the strike, referring to a potential court order, which the city could try to require the recipients of garbage to return to work for public health.
»Read more: Like AFSCME DC 33 Strike exposed lines of faults in the Philly workers’ movement
It was not inevitable that Parker would accept such aggressive tactics of the impact. As a self-proclaimed (*33*), Parker could try to avoid hiring “scabs”, as working force leaders call external performers imported during strikes. And in the early days of the strike, the relationship seemed prone to the success of administration in securing narrow court orders requiring some DC 33 members who perform the necessary tasks to submit work.
The Dam of the Dispute began a few seconds after Boulware announced the strike at 12:01 July 1When the city’s lawyer of Renee Garcia personally served him a request for an order regarding employees of the Water Department.
Before DC 33 decided to settle, writing was on the wall: Parker did not intend to fold on time so that the relationship would win concessions, before the courts could close everything by eliminating the lever of the workers.
“We felt that our clock would end,” said Boulware a few minutes after the strike.
Although Parker has achieved her goals in the contract, her tactics probably will not be soon forgotten in pro-laboratory circles.
“The aggressive orders that are to break the strike and attacking Union leaders in order to divide them from membership, comes directly from the Anti-Union textbook,” said a member of the Kendra Brooks Council on Friday in a statement. “It’s dividing in a uniform city. “
“Responsible in terms of tax”
Parker wants to be remembered as someone who protected the fiscal health of the city, not only as a mayor, but reaches from the first work in the selected office as a representative of the state.
For Parker, this record of reasonable financial decisions protects municipal workers against scripts much worse than not winning the contract with 5% of annual increases: potential exemptions or insolvent pension fund.
“People can talk about becoming solidarity with our urban labor force, but I provided them long before I became the mayor,” she said. “Philadelphia is on a solid tax substrate for over 1.5 million people, which we represent-it is extremely important to me.”
She pointed to the state regulations, which helped, which provided financial assistance from Philadelphia, such as the extension of sales tax in 2014, which provided a school district worth $ 120 million, when it was in the face of a stern deficit. It also helped to adopt regulations regarding the stabilization of the Municipal Pension Fund, which once threatened to mutilate the city’s budget, and now it is fully financed within a decade.
And this year, her negotiating team, led by the main deputy mayor of Sinceré Harris, emphasized DC 33 that although the city currently has a great balance of funds, she can evaporate from day to day, if President Donald Trump the good of the threat of exceeding federal funds for cities.
“There is increased uncertainty due to the upcoming possibility of federal financing cuts,” said Parker. “All these aspects [were] considered to be [in] Our account, when we try to negotiate an honest and tax contract with our working force and do it without the need to fight people. I refuse it. “
“My people”
Before the end of the interview, Parker wanted to say one more thing.
“I wasn’t going to go here,” Parker said, adding that her staff would “be pissed”.
“There were many people who are not members of the District Council 33, and not part of this Parker administration, who does everything they could to control flames,” said the mayor.
Parker did not mention his names, but it was not hard to recognize who she referred to.
Progress elected officials of the city council and delegation from Philadelphia in Harrisburg gathered behind the DC 33 strike, and Parker, a moderate democrat, on Friday wanted to send a message that their “rhetoric of division and concerns and narrative” did not work. “
It was this thought that prompted Parker to emphasize that DC 33 members “are my peoples”.
»Read more: DC 33 Strike creates a political earthquake for members of the Philadelphia City Council
Members of the Jamie Gauthier and Rue Landau council, Democrats with strong relationships with progressive movement, marched in the DC 33 protest.
Senator of State Nikil Saval (D., Philadelphia) said that workers “demand what they deserve: wages that allow them and their families to live a worthy life.”
And members of the Brooks and Nicolas O’Rourke Council from progress Progressive Working Family, the party interrogated why the administration cannot satisfy the Union’s demands when it has just accepted the city’s business tax cuts.
Parker, who has long mastered the “medium districts” of the working class, invades rhetoric about helping the poor of which many of whom have no “life experience” of growing up the poor in Philadelphia. In the mayor’s race in 2023, she defeated the candidates who ran on the left, including the former member of the Council Helen Gym, who was supported by many local politicians who the most vocal supported the strike.
“They don’t want [the administration and the union] On the same side, because they benefit when there is disagreement, “said Parker. “And I know they worked difficult.”
Parker emphasized that she did not aim at the leaders or DC 33 members.
“I am talking about people outside who liked what they saw, who got all popcorn and said:” Oh, we like the whole disagreement we see, “she said. “You won’t win because I always do well for our urban labor force.”
