I wrote about the summer of sanitation workers in Philadelphia https://www.inquirer.com/jobs/labor/trash-pickup-philadelphia-sanitation-workers-20200804.html w/ visuals by @jessicagriffin @kristenbalderas

Some backstory: You'll see workers' voices aren't in the written piece. I wanted to interview them but their union said say they feared retaliation from the city. The city gave us access to some workers but when an employer gives you access, it's hard for folks to talk freely.

In the 1930s, sanitation workers were the most militant municipal union in the city, labor historian Francis Ryan told me. They went on a one-week strike -- for a living wage & job security -- known in West Philly as the "garbage riots."

I asked, what do you mean by "militant"? He said, I mean they used bricks to smash the windows of the scab trash trucks, pulled scabs out of the trucks and beat them unconscious in the streets.

Police came out to protect the scab workers and West Philadelphians who were pro-labor let union workers hide in their homes from the police. This is what Ryan is talking about when he says “an alliance between the people who collect the trash and the public they serve.”

Why in West Philly? Ryan said labor support was so strong in South Philly & Kensington, where many were also joining unions, that the city didn't dare send scab workers out there. The city, he said, was surprised by the outpouring of labor support in West Philly, too.

(Just another moment for that part -- labor support so strong in parts of the city that city gov was like, we couldn't send scabs there.)

The sanitation workers, then, were the most interracial union in the city, Ryan said -- that is to say, it had Black and white workers -- and that contributed to their power. Their leader, Bill McEntee, was white but they had Black leadership: stewards, a VP.

Back then, the Inquirer and another daily, the Philadelphia Bulletin, didn't publish photos of Black folks. ( ... yup) But photos from this strike did have photos of Black and white workers, showing interracial solidarity and, Ryan said, "challenging the norms in Philadelphia."

Hundreds got arrested during that strike. "Philly was known as a place where labor warfare was real," Ryan said. A year after, in 1939, the sanitation workers got their first contract.

Another point in sanitation worker history: In the 70s, Mayor Frank Rizzo appointed a cop to run the Streets Dept after a commissioner resigned. Sanitation workers refused to work for a cop. They went on a monthslong slowdown, refused to work OT, and ousted Rizzo's appointee.

OK thanks for coming to my history lecture via Francis Ryan who is an actual professor, at Rutgers. Here's his book on the history of Philly's municipal unions http://tupress.temple.edu/book/1045