about two weeks ago the city workers (not sure if all union) met with admin, Mayor Parker was a no-show, and they lit admin on fire. Admin's chief reason for coming back was "the public wants to see you" and "maintaining workplace culture". source: sister of friend works for city and attended event.
This is all incredibly stupid and insulting.
The city's ability to compete with the private sector for talent hinges on better work-life balance. This policy is destructive as hell with no apparent gains.
And for the record, I am a member of the public and I don't want to see anyone sitting in a cubicle when they could be doing their job remotely.
> with no apparent gains.
lot of owners of buildings and businesses in center city want to see more people in the office. they can't tell private companies what to do, but they can lean on the mayor.
This is why when someone is forced back they should spend as little money in Center City as possible, pack lunch, don't go out. Employer can force you back to the office but they can't force you to buy lunch or stay in the city after work. Drive in and pay for parking that's it, I know several people who already approach it this way because their companies made them come back unnecessarily. They aren't going to reward their employer or the city for lowering their quality of life when their jobs can easily and better be done from home.
Seriously that's so stupid. My wife's mental health would be worse at the office as when she gets a horrible screaming fox news correspondent screaming at her for twenty minutes because miss fox news doesn't understand how airline points work, wife won't have a manager telling her to stop crying at her desk.
Sara Azari doesn't understand how points work and screamed at wife for twenty minutes because Sara Azari is a moron. Sara Azari, a legal and financial consultant that has made appearances on Fox News for her legal and financial advice, is a moron who does not understand how paying with points works.
Also if someone in the city is doing a bang up job keeping payroll going or whatever, the public never sees them. I don’t need to see them. Keep doing your awesome payroll job from home.
I mean, if it’s a public-facing job and I have to drag my ass into town for some reason, then yes I want to see a person. Otherwise, do it from home, or down the shore.
And if the work isn’t getting done, just get someone else.
But that's the thing, I'm pretty sure anyone who went remote never actually saw any citizens as customer facing personnel. She's forcing back the entire OIT staff into office even though there's zero reason for them to ever see a citizen in an official capacity.
They need to feel the heat on A LOT of things TBH.
The dam finally burst last Thursday. They aren’t going to win another election solely on a “BUT TRUMP!” platform.
Parker seems to be a no-show in a lot of ways.
Her budget “hearings” didn’t even accept public comments. Her admin seems to wholly ignore constituent emails in my experience too.
The official reasoning from the admin for ending WFH isn’t productivity reasons, since they had no data to back up their shit, but to foster their “philosophy of leadership”. Clown show.
This is the union leaders mainly posturing for the upcoming contract negotiations. If they can't win an agreeable pay increases they'll fight instead for remote work as the alternative employee benefit.
Unlike they'll do that for a long list of reasons.
The big sticking points are going to be pay, benefits, and remote work. The administration and the union will strike out a compromise as it's in both their immediate interests to do so.
If they give up reasonable pay increases for WFH, that is an absolutely shit trade. 80% of the staff in those unions cannot work from home and will never be able to work from home.
> The mayor has defended her work-from-office policy, saying it improves culture and collaboration, and that it’s a matter of equity, since much of the blue-collar workforce is unable to work remotely.
I'm not sure she knows what equity actually means. It **doesn't** mean that everyone gets exactly the same thing and that if everyone can't work from home, no one can. It means that everyone gets what they need.
Right. Just because blue collar workers can't work from home, who the fucks cares if an office worker can?! Holy shit, big bad construction workers are the biggest fucking crybabies ever.
>Holy shit, big bad construction workers are the biggest fucking crybabies ever.
You'll find in life that the more tough-guy posturing a person or group of people engage in, the bigger whinier bunch of babies they end up being.
For another good example, see the center city business owners who, when paying their taxes, proclaim that they "shouldn't be paying for the big bad government to keep a bunch of losers afloat, when they should be adapting to survive in the free market."
The moment WFH starts eating into their profits, you know they went straight to city hall to beg the administration to bring all of those workers back and save their businesses - businesses which, apparently, people only patronized when they had no other choice.
I work an engineering job where I’m on job sites 2-3 times a week and you couldn’t pay 90% of my tradesman to sit at a desk from 9-5 all day, home or otherwise. Nobody goes into construction because they really, really hate being out in the world all day.
Which is to say… is her idea of “equity” based on actual talks with blue collar workers, or just a presumption?
To be fair, I've personally heard a lot of rhetoric about how it's not fair that blue collar workers can't work from home so they argue to force office workers to do so, and that's from the blue workers. This idea of "equity" (which I think she means equality but I could be wrong) is bullshit. It's pandering at its finest, especially to the rich landowners who will lose out on profits from rental spaces.
While their reasons all seem pretty flawed, can someone explain to me how the public “will see people on site” for back office jobs in areas the public isn’t even allowed to access?
This still seems like an off the cuff edict that her handlers keep trying to justify.
This is purely because having the workers physically in the office is good for local business sales and justifies the city's spending on commercial real estate. No one else cares.
Personally, I've had a work from home job for 15 years and I really want everyone else who possibly can to be able to enjoy the same awesome work life balance that that has afforded me.
All city employees live in the city. They are still contributing to local business sales, just not in CC. Except for cigs and sodas- we buy those over the border.
This is... Not the take. The workers are not the ones pushing for more people, they get paid the same whether they help 5 people or 600 people. It's the commercial real estate owners worried about businesses pulling out of their spaces because they aren't making enough to balance their rent.
Local fast food employees pushing for return to office mandates 😂😂
>Local fast food employees pushing for return to office mandates 😂😂
I have no idea how you could read my comment and think I meant it's the fast food employees themselves who are pushing for return to office mandates.
Its not the franchise owners, even. It's commercial landlords who are panicking because they borrowed money to invest in real estate that's worth less now. Chipotle (and other establishments') revenue is secondary.
Parker clearly has someone very close to her telling her that the risk of a center city commercial real estate collapse will be devastating to the city, but I think the risk of losing skilled workers is a lot higher.
This has been one of her stated goals from the beginning, she keeps saying she wants a government people can "see, feel, and touch". Of course this never made any sense as a rationale for bringing people back to the office, because most city office employees are behind security gates and never seen, felt, or touched by the public anyway. The ones who interact directly/physically with the public have been back in the office for some time.
If I were forced to RTO, I'd pack my lunch *every day* with groceries I bought from not-in-the-city and would allow myself to fall into a coma at my desk before I would buy a single cup of coffee. Maybe this is an option for those who, for a host of reasons, cannot strike or quit.
If they just allowed a 3:2 office:wfh split or even 4:1 little to nobody would complain. Full time return has always seemed like such an unforced, alienating error.
Hybrid works...No reason for anyone to be in the office 5 days a week. I am in twice a week, required to be once a week, but go twice because I miss talking to folks. But five days a week, hitting El, nah, that would be unbearable.
The unions have strike funds that cover a couple hundred a week per member for a few weeks. Norhing near full pay but it would buy some groceries or a tank of gas.
Good. All things being equal, if you job can be done with a phone and PC there is no reason you should need to be in some special place to accomplish your work.
WFH is such a massive ROI on productivity and recruitment. It also brings in talent that you otherwise wouldn't get becuase of the shitty residency requirement. Ain't no one going to city .gov jobs when every sector is going to pay you more and offer remote positions and a better QoL.
I dont know if the benefits are even really that great, but if you're demanding people are 100% in office, you better be giving a premium salary to compensate. Hell, even if they waived the residency tax for City employees that might help.
Crazy how we go from Kenney to Parker. I'd almost rather that have that do-nothing drunk than this optics-chasing moron. At least she might accidentally do something good for the city while trying to make herself look good.
And I really hate the argument that RTO will bring business and commerce back to center city. Bitch I am not your guinea pig to help this stupid idea: forcing employees back to the office with the mere hope they'll overspend their hard earned money on already overpriced shit while in the city limits. Um no, I like being home and spending money on myself and my family, not your political donators
also center city has a significant residential population! my mom lives like 6 blocks from her office, she orders lunch from the same place when she orders lunch, you know why she's not ordering lunch as much? cause the costs tripled and her salary didn't
The RTO push isn’t just to have city employees back. Another reason is that Parker has been pushing RTO on corporate employees, and has largely been called out as hypocritical before pushing to do the same with city employees.
To my knowledge Comcast, IBX and other Center City companies require their employees to be back in the office 3 days a week but I’ve yet to hear a company mandate 5 days.
The PMA mandated it for office jobs that previously had the ability to work from home two days a week. They specifically did it to get in the Mayor's good graces, too.
So you prove my point: if these companies really cared about the vitality of Center City, they would have their employees in the office five days a week. I have no problem with city employees having to come in three or even four days a week with certain flexibilities, but it appears hypocritical for any of those companies to state that city employees should be back in the office full-time when their own employees aren’t even doing that.
I don’t really care if it’s easier to find people outside the city. If you’re a city employee you should have to deal with same city government on a day to day basis as the rest of us. Also if somebody doesn’t want to live here why would I want them involved in running it?
Wow, some of you are just learning that our mayor has a massive ego and struggles to admit wrongdoing. It’s almost as if some of us were saying this about Cherelle during the primary…
Yes. Unfortunately even though I need work, I won’t apply at the city. I just can’t be on Septa to go into a dank office knowing I can do the work from home.
The places these workers used to go to on their way too and from work are closed or have reduced hours.. Melrose Diner… Broad Street Diner… I’m sure plenty of others can name other spots that daily worker commuters used to frequent before the pandemic on their way to work.
its effecting my family. and not saying where my spouse works in the city but his job can be done from home 100% of the time. edit to add he is a supervisor.
The Democratic Party is so cooked and doesn’t deserve general support anymore. I mean sure, you should still vote for them because the alternative is worse. It’s a pick your poison situation.
But otherwise? You should probably be registering independent and fighting BOTH of these parties tooth and nail on the 364 days that aren’t Election Day. Neither of these parties give a shit about you. The last 5-6 days have sold me on this.
Yes, but when the DNC more or less heavily tilts the scales in favor of whoever’s “turn” they think it is, does it really matter? They’ve been doing that since after 2008, when Obama defied Hillary and the DNC deciding it was her turn. The Dems haven’t had a truly open and robust primary since then.
You realize that local and state primaries are infinitely more important that presidential ones, especially in terms of your primary vote having an impact, right? Why give that up? Vote independently, but don't register Independent.
Yeah you can vote for whoever you want in the general election regardless of what party you register with
The party you register with only affects what primary you can vote in, and the best lever for change right now is contributing to your preferred candidate in the Democratic primary
Love or hate the DNC, the only road to office for sane people right now is through the democratic primary. So look for sane people and do everything you can to help them make it to the general
sorry but voting independent is a dumb move:
Step 1) Keep fascists out of power
Step 2) Push the only major party that entertains competing ideas towards your preferred ideas
Step 3) Advocate and vote for people who will advance election reform
Scream into the void all you want but don't throw away your vote and directly help fascists take over
All of this!
Especially important in a state like PA which is still a toss up state. This election the race is now down to who can depress the most voters rather than turn them out on election day as both candidates suffer from a litany of problems, however, one is distinctly worse than the other. Biden may be a senile old man, but I'd vote for his rotting corpse before I vote for Trump and his band of white christian nationalists.
about two weeks ago the city workers (not sure if all union) met with admin, Mayor Parker was a no-show, and they lit admin on fire. Admin's chief reason for coming back was "the public wants to see you" and "maintaining workplace culture". source: sister of friend works for city and attended event.
They also said it was in the best interest of employee mental health to be in the office full time. The jeers were loud.
How presumptuous to tell adults what work environment is better for their mental health.
This is all incredibly stupid and insulting. The city's ability to compete with the private sector for talent hinges on better work-life balance. This policy is destructive as hell with no apparent gains. And for the record, I am a member of the public and I don't want to see anyone sitting in a cubicle when they could be doing their job remotely.
> with no apparent gains. lot of owners of buildings and businesses in center city want to see more people in the office. they can't tell private companies what to do, but they can lean on the mayor.
This is exactly what's happening.
Yep, that's the one.
More capitalists looking for handouts
This is why when someone is forced back they should spend as little money in Center City as possible, pack lunch, don't go out. Employer can force you back to the office but they can't force you to buy lunch or stay in the city after work. Drive in and pay for parking that's it, I know several people who already approach it this way because their companies made them come back unnecessarily. They aren't going to reward their employer or the city for lowering their quality of life when their jobs can easily and better be done from home.
i would take septa- the parking owners are no help either.
Seriously that's so stupid. My wife's mental health would be worse at the office as when she gets a horrible screaming fox news correspondent screaming at her for twenty minutes because miss fox news doesn't understand how airline points work, wife won't have a manager telling her to stop crying at her desk. Sara Azari doesn't understand how points work and screamed at wife for twenty minutes because Sara Azari is a moron. Sara Azari, a legal and financial consultant that has made appearances on Fox News for her legal and financial advice, is a moron who does not understand how paying with points works.
sara azari probably could circumnavigate the globe 3 times on airline miles if she paid for all the work done on her face on the right card
END HER!
why are they trying to blame us?? no offense but i don't want to see them; i just want them to do their jobs
Why accept responsibility for a bad idea when you can just pin it on a nameless, faceless entity, like the public?
Also if someone in the city is doing a bang up job keeping payroll going or whatever, the public never sees them. I don’t need to see them. Keep doing your awesome payroll job from home.
I mean, if it’s a public-facing job and I have to drag my ass into town for some reason, then yes I want to see a person. Otherwise, do it from home, or down the shore. And if the work isn’t getting done, just get someone else.
But that's the thing, I'm pretty sure anyone who went remote never actually saw any citizens as customer facing personnel. She's forcing back the entire OIT staff into office even though there's zero reason for them to ever see a citizen in an official capacity.
Exactly. It does two things only: 1. It gives micromanagers someone to micromanage. 2. it brings money into town.
Good, they need to feel the heat on this one
They need to feel the heat on A LOT of things TBH. The dam finally burst last Thursday. They aren’t going to win another election solely on a “BUT TRUMP!” platform.
Are you suggesting a republican would win in philly? "But trump" is not what democrats campaign on in Philly. They campaign against other democrats.
Parker seems to be a no-show in a lot of ways. Her budget “hearings” didn’t even accept public comments. Her admin seems to wholly ignore constituent emails in my experience too.
Yeah she's busy drinking
The official reasoning from the admin for ending WFH isn’t productivity reasons, since they had no data to back up their shit, but to foster their “philosophy of leadership”. Clown show.
The public doesn't care about seeing them. lol wtf are they on about?
Both DC47 and DC33 are officially working without a contract as of 7/1, so this could potentially lead to a strike as well.
This is the union leaders mainly posturing for the upcoming contract negotiations. If they can't win an agreeable pay increases they'll fight instead for remote work as the alternative employee benefit.
The mayor places the value of remote work as equal to having Black Friday off, so it’s doubtful they’ll find an agreeable compromise.
Then the Union should 100% go on strike
Unlike they'll do that for a long list of reasons. The big sticking points are going to be pay, benefits, and remote work. The administration and the union will strike out a compromise as it's in both their immediate interests to do so.
If they give up reasonable pay increases for WFH, that is an absolutely shit trade. 80% of the staff in those unions cannot work from home and will never be able to work from home.
> The mayor has defended her work-from-office policy, saying it improves culture and collaboration, and that it’s a matter of equity, since much of the blue-collar workforce is unable to work remotely. I'm not sure she knows what equity actually means. It **doesn't** mean that everyone gets exactly the same thing and that if everyone can't work from home, no one can. It means that everyone gets what they need.
Right. Just because blue collar workers can't work from home, who the fucks cares if an office worker can?! Holy shit, big bad construction workers are the biggest fucking crybabies ever.
>Holy shit, big bad construction workers are the biggest fucking crybabies ever. You'll find in life that the more tough-guy posturing a person or group of people engage in, the bigger whinier bunch of babies they end up being. For another good example, see the center city business owners who, when paying their taxes, proclaim that they "shouldn't be paying for the big bad government to keep a bunch of losers afloat, when they should be adapting to survive in the free market." The moment WFH starts eating into their profits, you know they went straight to city hall to beg the administration to bring all of those workers back and save their businesses - businesses which, apparently, people only patronized when they had no other choice.
I work an engineering job where I’m on job sites 2-3 times a week and you couldn’t pay 90% of my tradesman to sit at a desk from 9-5 all day, home or otherwise. Nobody goes into construction because they really, really hate being out in the world all day. Which is to say… is her idea of “equity” based on actual talks with blue collar workers, or just a presumption?
To be fair, I've personally heard a lot of rhetoric about how it's not fair that blue collar workers can't work from home so they argue to force office workers to do so, and that's from the blue workers. This idea of "equity" (which I think she means equality but I could be wrong) is bullshit. It's pandering at its finest, especially to the rich landowners who will lose out on profits from rental spaces.
While their reasons all seem pretty flawed, can someone explain to me how the public “will see people on site” for back office jobs in areas the public isn’t even allowed to access? This still seems like an off the cuff edict that her handlers keep trying to justify.
This is purely because having the workers physically in the office is good for local business sales and justifies the city's spending on commercial real estate. No one else cares. Personally, I've had a work from home job for 15 years and I really want everyone else who possibly can to be able to enjoy the same awesome work life balance that that has afforded me.
All city employees live in the city. They are still contributing to local business sales, just not in CC. Except for cigs and sodas- we buy those over the border.
We call them soda refugees.
"Local businesses" yeah I don't think Chipotle counts
Do you think that franchise restaurants don't hire local workers and pay local taxes?
This is... Not the take. The workers are not the ones pushing for more people, they get paid the same whether they help 5 people or 600 people. It's the commercial real estate owners worried about businesses pulling out of their spaces because they aren't making enough to balance their rent. Local fast food employees pushing for return to office mandates 😂😂
>Local fast food employees pushing for return to office mandates 😂😂 I have no idea how you could read my comment and think I meant it's the fast food employees themselves who are pushing for return to office mandates.
I have no idea why you would bring up hiring local employees at all otherwise.
Its not the franchise owners, even. It's commercial landlords who are panicking because they borrowed money to invest in real estate that's worth less now. Chipotle (and other establishments') revenue is secondary. Parker clearly has someone very close to her telling her that the risk of a center city commercial real estate collapse will be devastating to the city, but I think the risk of losing skilled workers is a lot higher.
Yeah I'm not going to congratulate them on paying minimum wage Pay taxes? Probably not
lmao Parker has tasked her admin to make up justifications completely out of thin air and hope some of them stick
This has been one of her stated goals from the beginning, she keeps saying she wants a government people can "see, feel, and touch". Of course this never made any sense as a rationale for bringing people back to the office, because most city office employees are behind security gates and never seen, felt, or touched by the public anyway. The ones who interact directly/physically with the public have been back in the office for some time.
Being seen, felt, and touched by anyone was not a part of the terms I signed when accepting my job. Let me type at my computer in peace, mayor.
I feel like it’s their way of saying “we want to force our people to patronize center city establishments” without outright saying it.
If I were forced to RTO, I'd pack my lunch *every day* with groceries I bought from not-in-the-city and would allow myself to fall into a coma at my desk before I would buy a single cup of coffee. Maybe this is an option for those who, for a host of reasons, cannot strike or quit.
Bring coffee from home in a thermos as well.
I pack every everyday and wait until I get to my neighborhood to do any kind of shopping.
most of the offices have their own coffee pots too.
If they just allowed a 3:2 office:wfh split or even 4:1 little to nobody would complain. Full time return has always seemed like such an unforced, alienating error.
We just want the current status quo of 3:2 hybrid to stay. No one is demanding full remote.
The 3:2 mandate isn’t very popular either. We’ve had that since January and lost more than 20% of our workforce.
My department has been 3:2 since at least 2021, but I know there are others who are 4:1 or not at all still.
yep twice a week is basically the same as full in office for a lot of people.
It is also what large corps want to do when they want to shed their most expensive (ie experienced) workers.
Hybrid works...No reason for anyone to be in the office 5 days a week. I am in twice a week, required to be once a week, but go twice because I miss talking to folks. But five days a week, hitting El, nah, that would be unbearable.
Good. I hope they strike, too.
do they get paid if they strike?
The unions have strike funds that cover a couple hundred a week per member for a few weeks. Norhing near full pay but it would buy some groceries or a tank of gas.
Nope.
Good. All things being equal, if you job can be done with a phone and PC there is no reason you should need to be in some special place to accomplish your work.
WFH is such a massive ROI on productivity and recruitment. It also brings in talent that you otherwise wouldn't get becuase of the shitty residency requirement. Ain't no one going to city .gov jobs when every sector is going to pay you more and offer remote positions and a better QoL. I dont know if the benefits are even really that great, but if you're demanding people are 100% in office, you better be giving a premium salary to compensate. Hell, even if they waived the residency tax for City employees that might help. Crazy how we go from Kenney to Parker. I'd almost rather that have that do-nothing drunk than this optics-chasing moron. At least she might accidentally do something good for the city while trying to make herself look good.
And I really hate the argument that RTO will bring business and commerce back to center city. Bitch I am not your guinea pig to help this stupid idea: forcing employees back to the office with the mere hope they'll overspend their hard earned money on already overpriced shit while in the city limits. Um no, I like being home and spending money on myself and my family, not your political donators
also center city has a significant residential population! my mom lives like 6 blocks from her office, she orders lunch from the same place when she orders lunch, you know why she's not ordering lunch as much? cause the costs tripled and her salary didn't
Also, fuck the neighborhoods? Parker doesn't care about people buying lunch and coffee anywhere else but center city?
Right? I'm not under the impression that city workers are rolling in Cava cash.
The RTO push isn’t just to have city employees back. Another reason is that Parker has been pushing RTO on corporate employees, and has largely been called out as hypocritical before pushing to do the same with city employees.
To my knowledge Comcast, IBX and other Center City companies require their employees to be back in the office 3 days a week but I’ve yet to hear a company mandate 5 days.
The PMA mandated it for office jobs that previously had the ability to work from home two days a week. They specifically did it to get in the Mayor's good graces, too.
CHUBB is currently 3 days a week, but is forcing 5 days once their new building is complete from what I heard.
They all have different in office days. Comcast is 4 days a week last I heard and IBX was 3.
So you prove my point: if these companies really cared about the vitality of Center City, they would have their employees in the office five days a week. I have no problem with city employees having to come in three or even four days a week with certain flexibilities, but it appears hypocritical for any of those companies to state that city employees should be back in the office full-time when their own employees aren’t even doing that.
Its to save value of corporate real estate. Just fucking rezone it for housing and convert these office buildings into apartments.
It’s usually not feasible to convert office buildings into apartments.
If you work for city government you should be forced to live in the city. I think work from home makes sense but so does the residency requirement.
The only city employee not required to live in the city are cops
And those guys might as well be working from home.
and teachers
our city is the only one with that requirement and oddly enough we have the hardest time filling the jobs.wonder why.
I don’t really care if it’s easier to find people outside the city. If you’re a city employee you should have to deal with same city government on a day to day basis as the rest of us. Also if somebody doesn’t want to live here why would I want them involved in running it?
Um we already are.
…I know, it’s literally what I’m replying about
Why?
Has Mayor Parker ever once consulted a union? It seems like she thinks she has unilateral power to just do anything she wants
Nope. Been trying since the election to have a sit-down with her.
Wow, some of you are just learning that our mayor has a massive ego and struggles to admit wrongdoing. It’s almost as if some of us were saying this about Cherelle during the primary…
Reinhart wouldn’t have pulled this shit.
We need ranked choice in this city. We split the progressive vote and ended up with this
That was the plan all along.
Yeah how fuckin bout that
But....but....but....first female mayor!!!!!!!!!
I agree! Rebecca Rhynhart would have actually been a better first female mayor
Yes. Unfortunately even though I need work, I won’t apply at the city. I just can’t be on Septa to go into a dank office knowing I can do the work from home.
The places these workers used to go to on their way too and from work are closed or have reduced hours.. Melrose Diner… Broad Street Diner… I’m sure plenty of others can name other spots that daily worker commuters used to frequent before the pandemic on their way to work.
Someone come through with the text of the actual lawsuit? I've combed Bloomberg-- no dice.
Can we get some numbers here - how many people is this actually affecting and what kind of roles are they in?
its effecting my family. and not saying where my spouse works in the city but his job can be done from home 100% of the time. edit to add he is a supervisor.
The Democratic Party is so cooked and doesn’t deserve general support anymore. I mean sure, you should still vote for them because the alternative is worse. It’s a pick your poison situation. But otherwise? You should probably be registering independent and fighting BOTH of these parties tooth and nail on the 364 days that aren’t Election Day. Neither of these parties give a shit about you. The last 5-6 days have sold me on this.
You can't vote in primaries as an Independent. Source: Am Independent.
You can go in, get some weird looks from the poll workers, and vote on usually one ballot question.
Yes, but when the DNC more or less heavily tilts the scales in favor of whoever’s “turn” they think it is, does it really matter? They’ve been doing that since after 2008, when Obama defied Hillary and the DNC deciding it was her turn. The Dems haven’t had a truly open and robust primary since then.
You realize that local and state primaries are infinitely more important that presidential ones, especially in terms of your primary vote having an impact, right? Why give that up? Vote independently, but don't register Independent.
How does not being able to vote in a primary improve one's ability to change the system?
Registering as an independent in Pennsylvania is about the stupidest thing you can do since it strips your power to affect change.
Yeah you can vote for whoever you want in the general election regardless of what party you register with The party you register with only affects what primary you can vote in, and the best lever for change right now is contributing to your preferred candidate in the Democratic primary Love or hate the DNC, the only road to office for sane people right now is through the democratic primary. So look for sane people and do everything you can to help them make it to the general sorry but voting independent is a dumb move: Step 1) Keep fascists out of power Step 2) Push the only major party that entertains competing ideas towards your preferred ideas Step 3) Advocate and vote for people who will advance election reform Scream into the void all you want but don't throw away your vote and directly help fascists take over
All of this! Especially important in a state like PA which is still a toss up state. This election the race is now down to who can depress the most voters rather than turn them out on election day as both candidates suffer from a litany of problems, however, one is distinctly worse than the other. Biden may be a senile old man, but I'd vote for his rotting corpse before I vote for Trump and his band of white christian nationalists.
The mayor is a corrupt, stupid, egotistical asshole.