The Last Union Town

A question looms: If even Richard Nixon had identified a racial disparity in Philadelphia’s unions, how could they still be racially imbalanced, all these years later? Public relations executive Larry Ceisler enjoys a unique view on the people involved, since he is spectacularly and strangely well-connected: He represents both Local 98 and John Westrum, the big-time developer who once testified that unions are driving up the cost of construction in Philadelphia.

“The majority of the City Council was elected with the help of the building trades,” Ceisler says. “Maybe every member. Financial and political support.”

Perched on his wooden chair in Council chambers, Keel looked down on the heads of the Council members and confirmed Ceisler’s thought: “Oh yes, absolutely.”

Philadelphia’s unions are the most politically savvy in America. The most luminous union personalities aren’t just known for their skill in negotiating with powerful politicians. They are politicians. John Dougherty isn’t just head of electricians Local 98; he has flirted with runs for mayor himself, and controlled some of the most influential bureaucracies in the city, like the treasury of the Democratic Party, the Delaware River Port Authority, and the city’s Redevelopment Authority. Pat Gillespie doesn’t just run the Building Trades Council; he once served as a state legislator, he’s currently on the board of the Convention Center, and during John Street’s final days as mayor, Street named Gillespie to the Zoning Code Commission.

The line that separates unions and politics in most cities has disappeared in Philadelphia, and over the years, a quid pro quo emerged: Powerful unions, which had been gathering steam since the days of the potato-hurling cordwainers, threw their support behind certain candidates. And those candidates worked to protect the unions against the sort of open-shop fiasco that Altemose created in the suburbs.

Something happened recently to upset that balance: A Philadelphia mayor took office without the help of the city’s unions. It’s a fundamental shift in the city’s political structure, and joins the rumble of circumstances that now threaten the unions.

“The building trades did not back the winner of the mayoral election. Nobody did,” PR exec Ceisler says. “Well. Except the voters.”


WHILE CITY COUNCIL debated, a block away, the incoming mayor, Michael Nutter, sat in his makeshift office, dining on a packet of Mallo Cups and taking a never-ending series of phone calls about Council’s pending decision.

Nutter enjoys enormous independence regarding the unions. Since they didn’t support his candidacy, he owes them nothing. But he also takes office over a city full of fault lines: Powerful union interests. Powerful black interests. And, maybe most important, powerful black union interests. In the next few months, contract negotiations come due for the four major municipal unions, which are separate from the trade unions and have a high percentage of minority workers. Nutter will bear much responsibility for those negotiations, and if they fail, the city could grind to a stop.

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