20-foot rat stops by the Nutters' house
Get inside the halls of Philadelphia power with PhillyClout: Inside City Hall, the blog by the Philadelphia Daily News' city hall reporters.
20-foot rat stops by the Nutters' house
A 20-foot-tall inflatable rat and a few hundred union protesters made their presence felt on Mayor's Nutter's block in Wynnefield on Thursday evening.
The mayor likely wasn't there, spokesman Mark McDonald said, but District Council 33 got its point across anyway. The union, which represents 11,000 blue-collar municipal workers, has been working without a contract since 2009 and without wage increases, and they aren't happy about it.
"Workers got to stand up. You can't just keep taking this," shouted DC 33 President Pete Matthews. "Labor is the new civil rights issue."
The rat was loaned from the stagehands union currently fighting its own war against the Philadelphia Theater Company. But DC 33 officials say they'll be getting a rabblerousing rodent of their own soon.
(So don't worry. Even if labor rats are going out of style elsewhere - they're here to stay in Philly.)
The stakes are getting higher in the stalemate between Nutter and the union. Wednesday marked the Nutter-imposed deadline for the union to agree on his "final offer," which included pay raises, possible furlough days and reductions in pension costs.
No deal was reached despite late-night negotiations Wednesday.
The mayor is holding a press conference Friday morning on the issue, and many think he will announce a plan for the administration to get its way through court intervention.
Matthews' speech Thursday highlighted the urgency of the situation.
"There might be a time when we have to make the ultimate sacrifice," Matthews said, apparently alluding to a strike, "but we're going to do that at the right time."
McDonald said the workers would be wise to take the administration's deal.
"Instead of standing outside the mayor’s house, the members might want to bring pressure on their union leadership to agree to something would give them raises," he said.
The unions have their boot on this city's neck. He's not perfect, but kudos to Nutter for taking them on.— Thad Lawrence- the mayor shouldnt have any peace until the unions get a contract they should be at his house everyday they need to do city councils as well they are suppose to work for citzen of thew city which city enployee are
— gmoney9
Follow Chris on Twitter
David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics – which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
Follow Dave on Twitter.
Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans. E-mail tips to ransomj@phillynews.com
Follow Jan on Twitter
Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
Follow Sean on Twitter
