Philadelphia court orders striking medical examiner's office employees back to work
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A Philadelphia court is ordering striking medical examiner's office employees back on the job as the blue-collar workers' walkout continues.
The city sought the order, saying the office was experiencing delays in picking up the bodies of the deceased.
Workers were expected to report for duty starting with the 3 p.m. shift on Thursday.
An example of the problem could be seen on Thursday morning in Germantown. A 19-year-old man died after being shot at 5:47 a.m. but, many hours later, his body was still lying in the street.
Chief Medical Examiner Lindsay Simon said in a court document that unrecovered bodies present a potential risk to public health.
There were also concerns about a delay in bodies being released from the morgue to grieving families, Simon wrote.
She went on to write that the morgue was already over capacity as of late Tuesday morning, just hours after the strike began.
City employees redirected from other departments have been filling in, but they were unable to keep up with the volume "as they lack the specialized certification and access to security sensitive software."
Meanwhile, mountains of trash were piling up in parts of the city as the strike continued for a third day.
Sanitation workers are among the DC33 union members on the picket line, which means residential trash collection stopped when the strike was called at midnight Tuesday.
Chopper 6 was over a massive mound of garbage along Devereaux Avenue near Langdon Street in Northeast Philadelphia. It's one of dozens of temporary trash dropoff locations the city has established.
The latest round of negotiations began Wednesday but ended overnight without a deal.
