Fairhill resident Teea Tynes remembers the last time Philly’s sanitation workers went on strike in 1986.
“Trash was everywhere,” says Tynes, a co-director of Trash Academy, a grassroots advocacy group that fights for changes to Philadelphia’s waste management policies and an end to illegal dumping. “I remember trash being stacked up in front of houses — occupied and vacant — stacked up near poles and vacant lots. It was collecting on corners. It was not a pleasant situation.”
That situation is starting to seem pretty familiar. More than 9,000 City workers who belong to AFSCME District Council 33, which includes our sanitation workforce, went on strike July 1. The workers — who also include librarians, 911 operators, street repair crews — and the Parker administration are at odds over salary increases. Already the trash is piling up: on sidewalks, on streets, around the City’s temporary waste disposal sites — even at City Hall…