The city of Philadelphia spent nearly $800,000 to hire non-union help following two back-to-back snowstorms earlier this year, the NBC10 Investigators confirmed. Philadelphia International Airport picked up more than 30 inches of snow last winter, beating the average by seven inches, according to the National Weather Service. A good portion of that snow fell across two storms in late January and late February. A deep freeze between the storm made January’s snow difficult to clear. The job of clearing snow within city limits normally falls to union workers in AFSCME District Council 33. The union represents more than 10,000 city workers across departments like Sanitation, Prisons and Water. In addition to some union members, the city hired at least 300 dayworkers to help remove snow, mainly before February’s storm. Documents the NBC10 Investigators obtained through a records request, including receipts, invoices and orders, show the city spent $783,053 for 15 days of labor. “This is one of the failures that I think that we’ve had, that certainly can be built upon,” District Council 33 President Greg Boulware said. “And the people who pay for this are the taxpayers.” Muata Lackey, a dayworker who found the job through Uplift Solutions, said clearing the snow was a way to help his community and get paid. “It was a good opportunity for me to make some money and do something positive for the city that I live in,” Lackey, who received $100 for four hours of work, said. “If you’re somebody who’s struggling or going through challenges — it was a good thing to get people a little bit of hope, so, we were able to make some money.” The city bused workers to and from job sites and reimbursed workers for meals, documents said. The city also provided the day workers with clothing, including jackets, pants and gloves, according to a records request. “This is the very type of equipment that our men and women need every day,” Boulware said. “We don’t get these face masks out there and these multi-layer coats and these multi-layer faceted boots and things like that. These are things that our people need.” Boulware said he believes tapping into outside resources went against the agreement the union has with the city. “When you have an administration that has advocated for the workers on a regular basis,” he said. “To not actually reach out to the workers that had that conversation about that is a huge and tremendous slap in the face to all of our people.” After the storms, the union filed a grievance, saying the city violated the collective bargaining agreement by implementing the same-day work and pay initiative to perform bargaining unit work. “Had the city met with the union in advance, as it is obligated to do, the parties could have discussed the scope and structure of the initiative and explored whether modifications were appropriate,” a lawyer for the union wrote in a letter provided to the NBC10 Investigators. Carlton Williams, the director of the Office of Clean and Green, said the city looked at all avenues for clearing snow. “We needed to get the walkways open; pedestrians had to get across the street, people had to go back to school and get back to work, and so we had to use every tool in the toolbox,” Williams said. Williams added he and the city recognize they should have talked more with the union when planning their response. “We tried to use our best decision-making authority to get as much resources as we could to keep the public safe, and that was our biggest priority,” Williams said. “Could we have improved communications? Yes, we’ve learned that.” During a subsequent storm, both city leadership and the union president said the process was more efficient. The NBC10 Investigators asked officials in New York City and Washington, D.C., how they managed to clear the snow in the regional storms. Leaders in Washington said they employ a snow team of essential unionized workers from other agencies. New York City pays emergency shovelers, but officials added that those part-time workers never replace other city employees. The NBC10 Investigators can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected]. ...read more read less