Philadelphia workers and city reach a deal to end strike that halted residential trash pickup

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A union representing thousands of city workers in Philadelphia and the city have reached a deal to end a more than weeklong strike that halted residential curbside trash pickup and affected other services, officials said Wednesday.

Nearly 10,000 blue-collar employees from District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees walked off the job July 1, seeking better pay and benefits after negotiations with the city failed.

The tentative agreement gives workers a 3% raise in each of the next three years, far from the union's quest for 5% annual pay hikes. Half of the members will get an additional 2% raise through an added level on the pay scale, Mayor Cherelle Parker said, and most members will qualify by the end of the contract.

Residential trash collection will resume Monday, according to Parker, who asked for “grace” as pools, libraries, recreation centers and other services get back to normal.

“This is a very significant investment in our employees while at the same time ensuring that we as a city are living by our means,” Parker said at a news conference.

District Council 33 is the largest of four major unions representing city workers. Its membership includes 911 dispatchers, trash collectors, water department workers and many others. Police and firefighters weren’t part of the strike.

Parker said that over her four-year term, DC33 workers will have received a total pay bump of 14%, including a 5% one-year hike she gave all four unions after taking office last year.

Many residents seemed to support boosting the pay of DC33 workers, even as trash piled up in neighborhoods. The union says they earn an average $46,000 a year.

Union members must still ratify the agreement.

Rich Henkels, an actor who just moved into the city, called the settlement “disappointing.”

“The announced raises do nothing for the workers and their families, as the increases will be less than the rate of inflation,” said Henkels, 64.

The settlement was announced early on the ninth day of the strike, a period that included the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Some of the 60 drop-off centers that the city had designated for residential trash were overflowing. Most libraries and some pools across the city were closed, and recreation centers operated on reduced hours.

Last week, judges had sided with the city in ordering some critical employees back to work at the city’s 911 centers, water department and airport.

“We did the best we could with the circumstances we had in front of us,” union President Greg Boulware told reporters in brief remarks Wednesday morning.

A man drops off trash at a garbage collection site, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

A car drives past a garbage collection site, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

A police officer walks past a garbage collection site, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

A man walks past a garbage collection site, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

A woman walks past a garbage collection site, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

A man takes trash to a garbage collection site, Wednesday, July 9, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Trash is cleaned up at a drop-off site in Philadelphia as thousands of city workers remained on strike Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Tassanee Vejpongsa)

Trash piles up around dumpsters in Philadelphia as thousands of city workers remained on strike Monday, July 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Tassanee Vejpongsa)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.

The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.

Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.

“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.

Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.

Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.

She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.

The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.

The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.

Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.

“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”

Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.

The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.

That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.

For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.

Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.

"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”

An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)