By Tassane Vejponsa and Mary Claire Dale
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Despite their general support for the union’s demand for greater wages, some residents and small business owners are using pop-up hauling services to remove rubbish from their blocks as tensions and trash heat up throughout Philadelphia on Day 8 of a strike by blue-collar city workers Tuesday.
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After assuming office last year, Democrat Mayor Cherelle Parker offered a 5% raise as an olive branch to the four major city unions, and she is sticking to her offer of rises of roughly 3% annually over a three-year contract.
Jody Sweitzer, who has lived in South Philadelphia’s East Passyunk neighborhood for 26 years and has seen it gentrify, resulting in higher rents and less diversity, said she does think the mayor has made a grave error. Sweitzer is the owner of Dirty Frank’s, a well-known bar in the downtown area.
“You know, forty thousand dollars won’t cut it in Philadelphia,” she replied, alluding to the wages of striking employees. With that type of money, you can hardly afford to rent an apartment. As a resident of Philadelphia, I believe that she is treating the workers who truly reside here unfairly.
Nearly 10,000 workers are on strike by District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; however, judges have sided with the city and ordered some key employees to return to work at the airport, water department, and 911 centers. Additionally, judges have ordered a temporary stop to evictions.
Despite the fact that the two parties have only met sporadically since the strike started, there was optimism that they will resume negotiations on Tuesday. 45,000 tons of rotting trash were left in the streets during a three-week citywide trash strike in the summer of 1986.
Terrill Haigler, 35, a former sanitation worker who now works as a private hauler under the name Ya Fav Trashman, claimed that Tuesday’s 94-degree heat was contributing to an increase in stress.
He remarked, “It’s like Gotham City with water ice,” alluding to a regional delicacy that locals infamously mispronounce as “wooder ice.”
District Council 33 has our full backing, Haigler stated. They are entitled to all of their requests, but we must also consider the people who live across the street. Some elderly persons and moms with young children are unable to leave their trash out for five, six, seven, or eight days.
Haigler was hired by a store owner on Sweitzer’s Street to clear the block on Tuesday. Consequently, he enlisted the assistance of two adolescents to drive a rental truck down the small, one-way street that leads to Pat’s King of Steaks.
By cleaning as many blocks as we can and collecting as much trash as we can for consumers, we aim to lessen some of that strain and provide some serenity and comfort, Haigler stated.
About 60 locations have been set aside by the city as home trash drop-off locations, but some are overflowing, and the on-duty striking employees advise locals not to cross the picket line. The majority of the city’s libraries are likewise closed, and security and support staff are not in the office.
City officials said other citizens were abusing the situation by throwing out mattresses and other bulk items, despite Sweitzer’s hope that the strike would inspire more people to compost and reduce their trash. In the northeastern part of the city, criminals even set cooking oil and rotten chicken on fire. According to Carlton Williams, director of the city’s Office of Clean and Green Initiatives, the chicken tossers were taken into custody and will be fined $5,000.
Williams stated on Monday that this is not an excuse for unlawful dumping in the Philadelphia area.
