Nutter Declares War on Our City Workers

While delivering his budget to City Council, Mayor Nutter declared war on Philadelphia's municipal unions stating that he would seek to slash health care and pension benefits for city workers while reducing the number of paid vacation days.

As Patrick Kerkrstra of the Philadelphia Inquirer notes, "Nutter's budget is a clear declaration that he intends to use the fiscal crisis to win major concessions from the city's workforce." Concessions I would add that he has no intention of returning after the budget/revenue crisis.

This is a shameful day in Philadelphia. Instead of holding our public employees out as a model for how all workers must be treated, Mayor Nutter placed sanitation workers and social service providers on the chopping block, declaring that "all workers must share the burden." The unfortunate reality however is that all people across this city are not sharing the burden. Some, the poor and working class of Philadelphia, are being asked to shoulder the brunt of the burden through regressive tax increases and attacks on blue collar unions, while the Mayor does not consider ending 10-year tax abatements on high end condominiums like Symphony House and Liberty Place. The Mayor has shown his priorities, and while he declared in a recent press release that the budget "will protects the most vulnerable," it would be more accurate to say that the budget "will protect the most powerful." The Daily News kept a running blog on the the mayor delivering the budget here. See Reverend Jesse Brown's pictures from the event in City Hall here.

Image by Reverend Jesse Brown