It’s no secret that Philadelphia’s public transit system is falling apart at the seams. Today it took me an extra 40 minutes to get home due to a mix of “equipment malfunction and operator unavailability.” In other words, there’s no money for fixing death-trap vehicles or convincing workers to drive them.
After two transfers, I finally made it to the subway. And just to salt the wound, the A/C was out. Judging by the rate at which sweat was pouring down my back, it had to be at least 100°. It was humiliating. The whole experience was humiliating. I was headed for medium-rare while our smiling, strike-breaking mayor peered down from a political ad with her favorite slogan: “One Philly; a united city.”
Halfway through the ride, the anger of the man next to me started boiling over. He launched into a tirade for anyone who would listen:
“I’m sick of this. I’m sick of being lied to. When we elected [the mayor] she said she was gonna fix things, clean up the city. And now all of a sudden there ain’t no money? They paid those managers at the water plant $2,000 a day during the strike. And you want me to believe there’s no money to fix the air conditioning on my train home from work? How much longer do they expect us to just roll over and take it?”
With that he’d opened the floodgates. Everyone around us immediately agreed, prompting one man to start describing the conditions at his job as a temp worker for the city. Not only had the air at his job site been down since the beginning of June, the toilets had been down for almost as long—forcing over 70 people to share two portable toilets in the July heat. “And you know if the A/C at the mayor’s office went out, they’d have it fixed in a minute. But they know we gotta put up with it ‘cause we’re all temps who don’t wanna risk missing the full-time spot.”
As soon as he stopped, another lady started—though this time it wasn’t about her, but her son. “He hasn’t had air at school for over three months before the summer. And now they’re telling those kids they won’t have it back till October.” When I heard that, I brought up how disgusting it was that the mayor and her top staff had all gotten fat raises last year—some as high as 32%. “That’s criminal,” she said. “They should be locked up. Making that much while you got your kids sweating in your classrooms, you’re taking the food out their mouths—I’d lock them all up if I had my way.” Everyone around couldn’t help but agree.
When she stopped, I looked at the first man and asked him, “What do you think us working people need to do to fight back?” He answered as the train pulled into the next station: “The union leaders in the strike, they didn’t want to fight. I think we gotta get us some people who do.”
Everyone in earshot had this immense anger and frustration that came pouring out at the slightest touch. All it took was speaking up to bring it to the surface.
Maybe the mayor is uniting Philly workers after all.