Thousands of city workers go on strike in Philadelphia, affecting trash pickup, pools and 911 calls

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Striking city workers waved signs at traffic near Philadelphia City Hall and formed picket lines outside libraries, city offices and other workplaces as nearly 10,000 blue-collar workers walked off the job Tuesday

Seeking better pay and benefits, District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees announced the strike on its Facebook page early Tuesday.

Mayor Cherelle Parker said the city would suspend residential trash collection, close some city pools and shorten recreation center hours, but vowed to keep the city running. Police and firefighters are not on strike, but the DC33 membership includes 911 dispatchers, trash collectors, water department workers and many others.

By midday Tuesday, three librarians in town from Knoxville, Tennessee, for a convention arrived to tour the Free Library of Philadelphia on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, only to find the wrought iron gates closed as workers cheerfully protested outside. They stopped to chat with them and offer their support.

“We’re just out here trying to get fair wages, to try to get a better cost of living, because, as you know, everything in the world right now is going up,” said Dhafir Gerald, 48, a library security guard who said he loves the city because it gave him a second chance after a long-ago incarceration.

“The city has the money to pay us," said Gerald, who makes about $46,000 a year after six years of service, the first few with the sanitation department. "We are the backbone of the city.”

Parker, a pro-labor Democrat, promised that Fourth of July celebrations in the nation’s birthplace would go on as usual.

“Keep your holiday plans. Don’t leave the city,” she said at a Monday afternoon news conference that followed hours of last-minute negotiations.

In a statement Tuesday, the mayor said the city had “put its best offer on the table." The city offered raises that amount to 13% over her four-year term, including last year’s 5% bump, and added a fifth step to the pay scale to align with other city unions, she said.

“The City of Philadelphia remains committed to reaching a fair and fiscally responsible contract with our municipal workers who are a part of DC 33,” Parker said. “We are ready, willing and able to resume negotiations with the union at their convenience.”

City officials urged residents to be patient and not hang up should they need to call either 911 or the city’s nonemergency helpline. They said they would open drop-off sites for residential trash.

District Council 33 is the largest of four major unions representing city workers. Union president Greg Boulware did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Union leaders, in their initial contract proposal, asked for 8% annual raises each year of the three-year contract, along with cost-of-living hikes and bonuses of up to $5,000 for those who worked through the pandemic. The union also asked the city to pay the full cost of employee health care, or $1,700 per person per month.

In November, the city transit system averted a strike when the parties agreed to a one-year contract with 5% raises.

A DC33 trash strike in the summer of 1986 left the city without trash pickup for three weeks, leading trash to pile up on streets, alleyways and drop-off sites.

“Like any workers in this country, I think that they have a right to expect a livable wage, and it’s really nice to see our country’s ability to still have strikes and still have public dissent,” Nick Shuhan, a 34-year-old editor and property manager who lives in Center City, said Tuesday. “So I stand with them.”

Trash sits on sidewalk along Cumberland and Fairhill Street on Tuesday, July 1, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pa. (Alejandro A Alvarez /The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

Philadelphia municipal workers, AFSCME District Council 33, strike outside police headquarters on Tuesday, July 1, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pa. (Alejandro A Alvarez /The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

Trash sits on sidewalk at N. 6th and Allegheny Avenue on Tuesday, July 1, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pa. (Alejandro A Alvarez/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

Philadelphia municipal workers, AFSCME District Council 33, labor union that represents 911 operators strike outside police headquarters on Tuesday, July 1, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pa. (Alejandro A Alvarez /The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

Philadelphia municipal workers, AFSCME District Council 33, strike outside the Sanitation Division, on Tuesday, July 1, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pa. (Alejandro A Alvarez /The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

Philadelphia municipal workers, AFSCME District Council 33, strike outside police headquarters on Tuesday, July 1, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pa. (Alejandro A Alvarez /The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

FILE- Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker speaks during a campaign rally for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris outside the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Nov. 4, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, file)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)