🗑️ If Workers Have to Strike, the System Has Already Failed

Philadelphia’s sanitation workers are on strike. And that fact alone should stop us in our tracks — because no one walks off the job unless they’ve been pushed to the edge.

These are essential workers. They’ve labored through heatwaves, pandemics, and long hours to keep the city clean and safe. And what do they get in return? Wages that don’t meet basic human needs, followed by a mayor telling residents to haul their own trash — a service they already pay for.

Let’s be clear: when the people keeping a city running are forced to strike just to be heard, the government hasn’t just failed — it’s abandoned them.

Meanwhile, Private Equity firms are swallowing up every industry — from housing and food to healthcare and utilities — driving up prices across the board. And others follow their lead. But wages? They stay flat. Or worse — they’re treated like a luxury that workers have to beg for.

We live in a country where the people who do the hardest work are asked to do more with less — while being told the system just can’t afford them. But that’s a lie. What we can’t afford is a system that treats labor like it’s disposable and profit like it’s sacred.

💰 Manufactured Scarcity Is a Tool of Control

In a country that prints its own fiat currency, why are essential workers scraping by? Why are families living paycheck to paycheck, while billionaires accumulate more wealth than entire cities? The answer is simple — it’s not about money, it’s about control.

Scarcity, in this system, is a strategy. It’s not a failure — it’s the plan. Because when people are too busy surviving, they can’t fight back. If missing a paycheck means eviction or losing healthcare, you’re easier to control. You’ll tolerate exploitation, injustice, and underpayment because the alternative is homelessness or hunger.

That’s not economics. That’s economic theater — a performance staged to justify harm while wealth quietly moves upward. We subsidize war, corporate bailouts, and private equity deals, but when workers demand fair wages, we’re told “there’s no money.”

The truth? We have the money. We just refuse to spend it on the people.

The scarcity isn’t real. The control is.

I’m sure Mayor Parker is doing her best. But good intentions can’t fix a broken structure. If the system is designed to squeeze every last dollar from the public while denying fair pay to the people who hold it all together — then we don’t need tweaks, we need transformation.

This moment isn’t just about trash. It’s about respect. It’s about what kind of society we’re willing to tolerate. It’s about whose side we’re really on.

• ✅ Pay the workers.
• ✅ Respect their dignity.
• ✅ Stop passing the burden to the people.

Because enough is enough — and the people deserve better than this.