Philadelphia City Workers Go on Strike
Up to 15,000 city employees ranging from garbage collectors to social workers walked off the job at midnight Monday.
The first walkout by Philadelphia municipal workers in six years came two weeks after Mayor Ed Rendell unilaterally imposed contracts on the two unions.
The walkout affects all city workers except police and firefighters.
“I think that (the unions) have both bent over backward,” said Thomas Payne Cronin, president of the white-collar workers’ union. “I’m sorry to say the mayor seems intent on stripping the unions of any sense of dignity.”
The 12,000-member white-collar union and the 3,000-member blue-collar union called the walkout after failing to come to terms with the city by the midnight deadline.
Cronin and James Sutton, president of the blue-collar union, said the major problem centers on job security. Rendell has insisted on the power to lay off workers and reassign them.
Earlier Monday, the mayor warned that a walkout will cause pain but that supervisors stood ready to keep essential services running. He said the financially strapped city had no choice but to demand concessions.
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