Teeming Refuse

At a dozen dump sites in Philadelphia, mounds of refuse, piled in fantastic configurations, looked like some strange, fetid form of sculpture. For 18 days, while municipal garbage collectors remained on strike, the waste mounted to an estimated 20,000 tons. Clouds of flies hovered everywhere; rats scurried from their rancid treasure. Plastic trash bags became toxic balloons, swollen tight by noxious fumes from the detritus inside. "Trash entrepreneurs," driving around in vans, carted bags away for 75 cents each. Along with their luggage, residents even began taking their rubbish with them as they left for vacations in the Poconos or for trips to relatives in nearby New Jersey, where garbage collection is still a regular event.

But by week's end Philadelphians no longer had to go out of town to dispose of their trash. Garbage haulers decided to go back to work after Common Pleas Court Judge Edward J. Blake declared that some 2,400 strikers and their leaders were in contempt for ignoring his back-to-work order earlier in the week. Blake had ruled that the garbage constituted a "clear and present danger" to the public health and that the strikers should start cleaning up the mess. Mayor W. Wilson Goode then announced that he could hire 2,400 sanitation workers in 24 hours and threatened to fire workers who defied the ; court's back-to-work order. "Tell them to try me," said Goode.

The garbage collectors are protesting, among other things, the two-year, 10% wage package the city has offered their union. The haulers, however, represent only a small segment of the Philadelphia municipal workers who were on strike. Libraries, city-run museums, and swimming pools have been shuttered during the walkout. Meanwhile, last week municipal workers in Detroit followed Philadelphia's example and walked off the job for higher wages, shutting down buses, the city zoo and, yes, garbage collection. As the rubbish piled up there as well, a county judge ordered the city and unions, which represent 7,000 striking workers, to negotiate immediately.

In Philadelphia, strikers are led by Union Leader Earl Stout, a stubborn antagonist of Mayor Goode's, who has boastfully asserted that the city cannot run without him. At week's end, negotiations were under way, large numbers of workers were returning to their jobs, and Stout hinted that an end to the strike might be in sight. That was a hopeful sign since, as one negotiator for the city saw it, "Earl will settle when he wants to settle."