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It has now been two weeks since we had our contract forced on us by the AFSCME District Council 33 leaders. It was made clear then that they would not be fighting for us by claiming the below-inflation raises and other concessions made behind our backs were the “best that we could get.”
In fact, this contract is an act of calculated sabotage. As we stated when the tentative agreement (TA) was announced: “The union officials sprung this deal on workers behind their backs and ended the strike without a vote. This shows that they are working hand in hand with the city to prevent the strike from developing into a broader fight against inequality and the Democratic Party.”
The events in the past two weeks have proven this to be the case. Last Thursday, white-collar workers in our sister union, District Council 47, were forced to accept a sellout contract offer as well in another low-turnout vote. Their contract offered just 8.5 percent raises over three years, ignoring key demands like remote work. The TA was announced immediately after a strike vote revealed strong support for action, with DC 47 members voting 76 percent to authorize a strike on July 14. The very next day, July 15, the union announced the tentative agreement.
These weren’t tentative agreements but strike-breaking injunctions by another name.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, the newspaper of the city’s business elite, breathed a sigh of relief last week following the contract ratification for the white-collar workers at District Council 47, saying the “summer of municipal labor unrest is likely over.” We say: They have spoken too soon!
The Philadelphia municipal strike was the opening act in a rapid series of confrontations. Public school teachers face a $300 million budget shortfall, with a strike ratification vote showing readiness for action later this month. The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) faces a doomsday budget and a looming contract expiration in November.
In addition, over 4,000 hotel and hospitality workers affiliated with UNITE HERE are currently working with an expired contract in the city as major events are scheduled throughout fall and the holiday season.
At the same time, the city stands on the precipice of a larger municipal crisis. The Inquirer has warned of possible federal government sanctions or withheld funds—fueled, in part, by the political targeting of Philadelphia as a so-called “sanctuary city,” particularly under federal pressure from the Trump administration.
Reviewing the experience of the municipal workers’ strike is necessary for workers coming into struggle everywhere because it reveals key lessons about who is on our side and who is not.
2025 Philadelphia municipal strike: A watershed event
The strike began on July 1, after months of deadlocked negotiations between the union and Mayor Cherelle Parker’s administration. This was the first city workers’ strike in nearly 40 years, involving over 9,000 municipal employees. It included sanitation workers, water department staff, 911 dispatchers, mechanics and crossing guards.
Over eight days, our fellow workers shut down vital city services, gaining broad public sympathy. The impact was especially felt during Philadelphia’s July 4th “Welcome America” festival—a multimillion-dollar event—which saw drastically reduced attendance. Major headliners like LL Cool J and Jazmine Sullivan boycotted in solidarity. The strike disrupted city life to the extent that residents described the streets as “like Spring 2020 [during COVID lockdowns],” nearly empty, with widespread support for picketing workers.
Throughout the strike, picket lines grew steadily; municipal workers reported waves of solidarity from citizens eager to assist us. The public’s support—along with acts of solidarity from other city residents and even some public figures—showed the potential for a united working class movement against the city government’s attacks on our living standards.
Yet, after only eight days, the DC 33 leadership abruptly ended the strike during the pre-dawn hours on July 9, announcing a tentative deal that fell far short of the original demands. The terms were dictated with an unmistakable message: Either accept this contract, or risk something even worse—a “heads we win, tails you lose” situation.
This was a deliberate effort to weaken resistance, causing many members to stay away from the vote or to approve the deal simply to get it over with.
Role of the Philadelphia Workers Rank-and-File Strike Committee
The Philadelphia Workers Rank-and-File Strike Committee was formed to fight against this betrayal. Our committee articulates workers’ true interests in opposition to the union officialdom. Our published demands during the strike included:
No return without a vote! Full details of the agreement must be released and a democratic vote held. No back-to-work order can be accepted before this.
Reinstate the demand for an 8 percent annual wage increase. Workers cannot live on 3 percent raises.
Expand the strike! DC 47, SEPTA workers and teachers must join in a common fight. The massive school closures and transit cuts must be opposed by a unified movement.
Increase strike pay to $750 per week. AFSCME is sitting on hundreds of millions in assets. This money belongs to workers, not bureaucrats.
Build links with workers in other cities. The conditions facing Philadelphia workers are the same everywhere: layoffs, inflation, collapsing services. Build a national network of rank-and-file committees to coordinate the fight.
The Committee exposed that the AFSCME bureaucracy functioned as a direct conduit for the Democratic Party and the city’s political establishment—openly, as demonstrated by Mayor Cherelle Parker’s own words.
Parker told the Inquirer, “District Council 33—they are me. I am District Council 33. They are my people,” revealing the union’s integration into the government apparatus. This was made even more blatant by AFSCME national President and former Democratic National Committee leader Lee Saunders’ visit to our picket lines on July 7, no doubt to put pressure on Boulware and other officials to end the strike immediately. The strike was called off the following morning.
The actions of AFSCME are the rule, not the exception. The more power that workers show and the greater the possibility for a broader struggle, the more shamelessly the union apparatus intervenes to isolate, demoralize and ultimately betray the movement. The experience of DC 33 is mirrored nationally, as in the contract violations and crises for teachers in Chicago and other municipal workforces now bracing for attacks.
Immediate crisis and the struggles ahead
Across the country, the same playbook is used: contract violations, budget cuts, union treachery and bipartisan demands for “fiscal responsibility” at workers’ expense. Each betrayal further incites the need for independent, militant rank-and-file organization.
The Philadelphia Workers Rank-and-File Strike Committee underscores these urgent lessons:
Austerity and attacks on living standards are not isolated “negotiation issues,” but part of a coordinated effort between both established parties and the union bureaucracy.
DC 33 and other union leaderships are instruments of the political establishment, blocking, demobilizing and betraying workers’ struggles in the name of “realism.”
It is necessary for workers to establish their own independent organizations as these struggles approach in order to effectively combat the combined will of management and the union bureaucracy.
Any real fightback—whether among teachers, transit workers, sanitation workers, or any other public sector group—depends on breaking from the union apparatus and building rank-and-file committees that unify and coordinate resistance. The Philadelphia Workers Rank-and-File Strike Committee was formed explicitly for this task: to resist sellouts, to rally the broadest possible unity and to ensure struggles are led by workers themselves.
This critical experience—proves that only genuine rank-and-file leadership and organization, independent of both the union bureaucracy and the political establishment, can meet the demands of this crisis and defend the working class in Philadelphia and beyond. We urge more workers to join our committee in the days, weeks and months ahead to plan a real strategy to fight for their demands.