All of the City’s workers have been mandated to return to in-person work on July 15. But AFSCME District Councils 33 and 47 have decided not to take this decision lying down.
By Denise Clay-Murray
In a past edition of Hanging In The Hall, I talked about a meeting of Philadelphia City Council’s Committee on Labor and Civil Service regarding Mayor Cherelle Parker’s decision to bring all city employees back to work on July 15.
Council chambers were packed with less than enthused members of AFSCME District Council 33 and 47’s various divisions who expressed their concerns with Parker’s decision, bringing up such things as care for children and seniors, the convenience of working a hybrid — partially at home, partially in the office — schedule and, and this was most important to them, the lack of discussion between the mayor and the unions before this decision was made.
Because the issue was workplace location, Camille Duchaussee, the city’s chief administrative officer, told the committee that the mayor could make this decision without having to negotiate it with the unions. The contracts for District Councils 33 and 47 expired on June 30 and negotiations are currently ongoing.
The unions, however, felt differently.
Which is why District Council 47 has filed a suit in the Court of Common Pleas against the Parker administration seeking an injunction for the order. Both unions have also filed an unfair labor practices complaint with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board demanding that the administration negotiate with them.
While 80% of the city’s 26,000 workers are already back to total in-person work, there are about 5,000 workers who are doing some form of hybrid work. Some of them testified during the committee hearing that they were hired as hybrid workers, and that this change to in-person work goes against what they were originally told.
But the argument that’s sticking out to me is the “We need these workers to come back to work to help revitalize Center City.”
Honestly, I’m not surprised that this is part of the argument.
In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of empty office space here in Philadelphia. There are a lot of reasons for this. Some of them are economic. Others relate to the changing nature of work.
But no matter the reason, the office buildings are empty. And if there’s no people in them, that means that there are fewer people dining in restaurants, or shopping at the Staples near City Hall. Or paying entirely too much for coffee for the crappy service you get at La Colombe.
Or grabbing lunch at Hip City Veg. Or people hitting happy hours at the Capital Grille.
That hurts Center City.
However, Center City isn’t the only part of Philadelphia that matters.
During the City Council hearing, workers testified that while Center City doesn’t benefit from their largesse as hybrid workers, businesses in their neighborhoods do. That means that the Staples on City Avenue or on Germantown Avenue gets the business. You can grab lunch at the Green Line Café in West Philly. You can pay entirely too much for coffee at Chestnut Hill Coffee Company or hit a happy hour at the South Philadelphia Tap Room.
(I used to live around the corner from the Tap Room. Their happy hour is pretty good.)
So while I can understand Parker’s desire to get Center City back on its feet, it shouldn’t be at the expense of the neighborhoods. We tried that during Mayor Ed Rendell’s administration, and it didn’t work so well.
The hearing on the Union’s injunction is scheduled for Thursday, July 11.
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