LL Cool J and Jazmine Sullivan decide to stand with the people amid Philadelphia’s District Council 33 Strike. DC33 is the city’s largest blue-collar worker union with roughly 9,000 members. Members include: airport workers, Sanitation Department workers, street repair, 911 dispatchers, and Water department employees. Earlier in the week, the City of Philadelphia and DC33 were in negotiation for improved contract terms. While the strike began this week, tensions between the office of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and DC33 have been mounting for some time now. Whispers of a strike have been heard around the city for weeks, as DC33 has been asking for a livable wage increase.
As inflation sweeps the nation, we are beginning to see more civil unrest. That didn’t stop the city’s plan to celebrate America with its annual Wawa Welcome America Parade on the Ben Franklin Parkway. A concert that has been put on for 16 years, will be taking place in the heart of the city in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum, as trash simultaneously piles up in the surrounding areas. To remedy the strike the city opened trash dumping cites that have been very ineffective. Citizens have now started to leave bags of trash on random residential streets as well as central vein streets like Broad Street and Market Street. I was even told that the trash dumping has spilled into some of the neighboring states.
This problem is bigger than just the City of Philadelphia and DC33, it is a direct reflection of what’s happening in America.
LL Cool J and Jazmine Sullivan, both slated to headline and close out the concert took to Instagram to express their solidarity with DC33. 
They’ve both opted out of performing tonight, to which District Council 33 celebrated and Mayor Cherelle L. Parker reacted.
There’s no update on when negotiations will resume.
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