Philly city workers in white-collar jobs to get pay bump and an extra holiday in one-year contract extension

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Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker announced a deal to give white-collar city workers of District Council 47 AFSCME a pay raise and other benefits for signing a one-year contract extension.

The mayor said the deal included a payment of close to $900,000 to the union to offset medical expenses, and will grant workers a new holiday on the day after Thanksgiving in order to seal the deal.

Parker said her ultimate goal is to get a multi-year deal with the union, but said this year-long extension is designed to give workers a “fair deal while maintaining the city’s fiscal health.”

As part of the new contract, all workers who have been union members since at least Aug. 9 will get a 4.4% pay increase this fiscal year as well as a one-time bonus payment of $1,400.

“For a librarian who works for the city and is in District Council 47, it’ll mean an average pay increase ranging from $2,301 on up to $4,008 depending on what their exact job classification is,” Parker said.

Parker said she wants to provide economic security as part of an extended deal, but couldn’t achieve it at this time. She said the one-year deal was good news for the workers.

In July, AFSCME filed a lawsuit against the city to stop Parker’s return-to-office policy that required employees to be in the office five days a week. That lawsuit from members of District Council 47 maintains that the city needs to negotiate with the union before making changes to its remote work policy since it’s mentioned in the contract and the city has already negotiated about alternative work schedules in the past.

The union asserts in the lawsuit that eliminating remote work would “cause substantial harm for city workers and will throw city services into chaos.”

When announcing her return-to-work policy, Parker said in-person work is critical for the city to grow, adding that she wants people to be able to “see, touch and feel” their government, and believes that can’t be done when workers are at home.

The city still has not reached a new contract deal with District Council 33, which represents the city’s blue-collar workers. Those workers have been holding out for a multi-year contract with no one-year extensions.