City Union Workers March On City Hall
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City Union Workers March On City Hall
Catherine Lucey
Members of the city’s largest municipal union marched on City Hall today, demanding a new contract.
Over 150 members of AFSCME District Council 33 – which represents the city’s blue-collar workers -- descended on City Council chambers, bearing signs that read “Protect Public Services” and “We Are Taxpayers Too.”
“We’re the ones that provide city services. We come to work in bad weather,” said Daryal Brooks, 50, a sanitation worker who has been with the city for a decade. “The mayor he’s cutting back on everything. Now our department’s got mandatory overtime.”
DC 33 has been without a contract since June 30. So far the city has resolved only one of the four municipal contracts -- with the police union, who reached a deal through binding arbitration in December that provided them with raises, but made some benefit changes that should provide long-term savings to the city.
Nutter has pledged to cut the cost of the city workforce. Roughly 60 percent of the $3.9 billion general-fund budget is spent on salaries, benefits and overtime for city workers, most of whom are in unions. But so far the police contract has only added millions in unplanned expense to the city's budget woes, due to costly raises.
With three contracts left to go, Nutter is still planning on reducing annual labor costs by $25 million. The firefighters' contract, which will be resolved through arbitration like that of police, is largely out of his hands, leaving only negotiations with the two unions representing non-uniformed workers.
But negotiations with the non-uniform unions have been slow. And the workers in City Hall today said they weren’t interested in concessions like benefit cuts or furlough days.
“I shook hands with the mayor two years ago at the Labor Day parade,” said Dave Mapp, 33, an electrician in the water department who has been with the city for 4 years. “He reneged on a lot of things. I lost a great deal of respect and admiration for the guy.”
Negotiations are slow? How about instead of negotiating contracts his first year in office, like the two mayors before him, he gave them a hefty bonus to sit on some health benefit committee that either never met, or never got anything done. Then he opted not to contest any of the police arbitration award, will likely not contest the firefighters award, but perhaps thinks the other unions should bear the brunt of the economic crisis? He is so totally ineffective as to be an embarrassment to those of us who voted for him.— btruth- The ingrates are at it again. Gimme!Gimme!Gimme!.— junethe4th
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- Blue Collar worker always get the shaft when it comes to wages and benefits, while the White Collar workers get handed cash on a silver platter without any debate or scrutiny. White Collar Professionals always find some way or some excuse to shove money in the direction of or in the pockets of THEIR OWN KIND! They're just a private club of greedy criminals.— Grapost
- One should face the fact that cutting wages won't lead to lower taxes...in our current monetary system, because interest claims of total society grows in an exponential manner. And if you think you profit from the interest rate system, if you have a small amount of monetary assest...you certainly do not as long as you do not belong to the richtest 10%: http://blip.tv/file/3550987/ http://www.webinformation.at/material/debtmoney.pdf— catfrog
- Too bad unions! It is now time for concessions. The city cannot afford overly generous health care and pension benefits. And yes I am a tax payer too. Stop holding your hands out and get to work. Haven't you read or heard? The city is broke and it shouldn't be raising taxes so you get a nice big contract.— zjimmyjcb
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city has trash all over it... are you serious you want a raise?- Remember also that all step increases and career advancement increases have been frozen. These people are the worker bees, majority of city workers making less that 40K a year. These are your neighbors trying to pay their bills, and make ends meet. When cost of living steadily increases, they're pay is frozen.— B-Dub
I Dont blame city workers for trash in the streets. I Blame the citizens who dont give a darn about where they throw their trash at. Really. Can you believe how many pigs live in this city? Can you believe all those people who are jobless, have nothing to do all day but throw their trash in the streets? I have seen some sitting on their doorsteps talking on their cell phones and their sidewalks have more trash than a trash can and they dont even make an effort to clean their own sidewalk? And taxpayers want to cut THEIR pay because they cannot keep up with the pigs living in this city? Maybe yes, they SHOULD eliminate them and privatize all city departments, but then you will even be charged for the 'clean' air that you breathe. Be careful what you all wish for. Remember what happened when they privatized the playgrounds and all other grass cutting.- ***Edit***I Dont blame city workers for trash in the streets. I Blame the citizens who dont give a darn about where they throw their trash at. Really. Can you believe how many pigs live in this city? Can you believe all those people who are jobless, have nothing to do all day but throw their trash in the streets? I have seen some sitting on their doorsteps talking on their cell phones and their sidewalks have more trash than a trash can and they dont even make an effort to clean their own sidewalk? And taxpayers want to cut city workers pay because they cannot keep up with the pigs living in this city? Maybe yes, they SHOULD eliminate the workers and privatize all city departments, but then you will even be charged for the 'clean' air that you breathe. Be careful what you all wish for. And Remember what happened when they privatized the playgrounds and all other grass cutting.
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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
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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
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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
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