Residential trash and other services are on pause after 9,000 city workers walked off the job Tuesday.
Members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 33 called for a strike over contracting issues. It's the union's first strike since 1986 andPhilly's sanitation and other blue-collar workers have a much longer history with taking to the picket line — from brawling with scab workers during the Great Depression to taking a stand during the bicentennial.
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Some efforts were more successful, such as establishing DC 33 within AFSCME, while others left employees without the changed wages and working conditions they were working toward. Here are some highlights:
1938
trash strike 1937Provided Image/Special Collections Research Center/Temple University Libraries
Trash collectors went on strike for eight days in 1937, above, leading to the formation of AFSCME Local 222.
In September 1938, approximately 260 Street Cleaning and Highways Bureau employees were abruptly fired. In response, sanitation workers went on an eight-day stoppage that included strikers — and their children — fighting with hired replacement workers in the streets, Billy Penn reported.
The turmoil included 400 workers going toe-to-toe with police officers and the 500 scab workers hired to replace 3,000 collectors. The conflict included Molotov cocktails thrown at garbage trucks and, allegedly, a truck found in the Delaware River by a boat patrol.
A New York Times article from 1938 described a 10-block stretch of Wayne Avenue in Germantown covered curb-to-curb with ash and garbage during the strike.
"The litter was so dense that street car motormen had to stop in several places to remove obstructions from the tracks," the outlet reported. "Motorists avoided Wayne Avenue for fear of cutting their tires on broken glass."
That day, 100 men and women hurled bricks and bottles at scab workers in the neighborhood, resulting in seven arrests and 200 people taken into custody elsewhere for striking or sympathizing with workers. Strikers were also blamed for setting fire to a storeroom on the grounds of the city stable.
On Day 2, the workers were joined by 800 staffers from the Water Bureau. The following day, AFSCME allowed the strikers to form a chapter, Local 222, for workers in sanitation, street repairs and water, which was immediately recognized by Mayor Samuel Davis Wilson. The stoppage eventually ended a few days later when the workers were rehired.
1944
Trash strike 1944Special Collections Research Center/Temple University Libraries/for PhillyVoice
Above, Department of Public Works employees collecting trash on Green Street between 18th and 19th streets in 1944 following a 17-day strike.
After promising a raise for city worker in his election campaign in 1943, Mayor Barney Samuel walked back on his words in January 1944, saying that City Council had not budgeted for the raises.
At that time, Local 222 had split into three smaller chapters for street cleaning, water and highway bureaus. All three united for the cause and held a joint strike, despite low public support for the effort and a lack of funds due the mismanagement of the union's previous president, William Donohue.
The wage increases never came to fruition, but it resulted in AFSCME reuniting the three locals into one chapter: District Council 33. Locals for recreation center and airport workers were added soon after.
1970s
Trash strike 1978Provided Image/Special Collections Research Center/Temple University Libraries
Workers taking a break from picketing during the 1978 strike from municipal employees.
Philadelphia was hit by a number of strikes from various unions throughout the decade, with 200 stoppages reported by the Bureau of Labor Statisticsin 1974and 134in 1975— the latter of which wasmore than both New York City and Chicago.
In 1975, 55,000 state workers represented by AFSCME took part in a four-day strike for better wages. The effort was led by Gerald McEntee, the son of Local 222 leader Bill McEntee, who was president during the 1944 strike. It was the largest organizing campaign in the country at the time.
In 1976, workers in DC 33 and DC 47 took part in a 20-day slowdown in July, refusing to work overtime during the nation's bicentennial, according to theDoylestown Intelligencer.After two months of working without a contract, officials settled on no wage increases for the first year and a 13% raise the second, the Connellsville Daily Courierreported.
The decade culminated in an eight-day strike from 19,600 municipal employees in 1978, ending when workers ratified a contract that called for extensive layoffs. It was the most widespread stoppage in the city's history, and included workers in Philadelphia's marriage bureau. As a result, many couples wed in the suburbs instead.
1986
On July 1, 1986, more than 10,000 DC 33 workers went on strike alongside 2,500 white-collar workers from DC 47 in a conflict that would last 20 days. Similar to this go-around, the city set up dropoff sites where residents could take their trash, but it was a mere 15 locations compared to the 62 established Tuesday.
The sites got so full that residents who lived nearby set up watches to prevent people from adding to the pile, according to the LA Times.
"City officials estimate that 10,000 tons of fetid fruit, rusty appliances, TV innards, used diapers, soggy paper and other trash has accumulated at 15 emergency disposal sites on city-owned parks, vacant lots, median strips and other empty fields," the outlet reported on Day 15 of the strike.
The city claimed that the strike was illegal, and Mayor Wilson Goode ordered 2,500 trash collectors back to work on Day 18 after threatening to fire them and bring in private contractors. The effort was also damaged by DC 47 ratifying a contract a week prior, so workers headed back to the office just two days later without a new contract,although both parties had come to an agreement on everything except wages,the New York Times reported. In total, 45,000 tons of trash were reported to have piled up in the city's sites during that time.