Philadelphia mayor absent from latest media briefing as city workers strike enters second week
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker was noticeably absent Monday afternoon when city officials gave their latest briefing addressing the ongoing strike of District Council 33 union members. Instead, Carlton Williams, director of the city's Clean and Green Department, took questions from reporters.
CBS News Philadelphia asked city officials why Parker did not attend the Monday briefing. A spokesperson for the mayor's office said in an email, "We don't discuss communications strategies. … We wanted Director Williams to give a full trash update to the public."
As of 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, city officials did not have a press briefing scheduled, marking the first business day without a press conference since the start of the strike on July 1.
Meanwhile, another injunction filed by the city ordering some striking union members back to work was granted by a judge Tuesday afternoon.
This time, it's airport dispatchers being told to get back on the job.
This marks the fourth order by a judge requiring some union members to return to work.
This latest one mandated eight airport dispatchers from Philadelphia International to return to work by Tuesday afternoon. These workers operate much like 911 dispatchers for the airport.
On the first day of the strike on July 1, a judge ordered about 230 911 dispatchers to return to work, along with enough staff at the Philadelphia Water Department to keep operations afloat.
Then on Thursday, about 30 workers in the Medical Examiner's Office were ordered to get back on the job after the city filed an injunction saying there was a backlog of dead bodies because some workers were on strike.
Francis Ryan, a labor historian from Rutgers University, said the injunction requests from the city are to be expected during a union strike.
Asked if sanitation workers could be ordered back to work, Ryan said, "It's possible."
"That did happen in 1986, this is a different strike, this is a different historical moment than 1986, though. I think that what makes this strike so unique is it's happening in the time of social media, and I think that the union has leveraged social media in such a way that there's a lot of public support," Ryan said. "More public support than I've seen in the historical record going back to 1938."
CBS News Philadelphia asked the city how much it's paying contractors to pick up the trash from the dumpster sites, but a spokesperson said they don't have that figure yet.
