More than 1,500 Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO) workers went on strike July 4, the first walkout in the utility’s 145-year history, as Philadelphia and the surrounding region marked the Independence Day holiday under a punishing heat wave.

Striking on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, in the very city where independence was declared, underscores that the revolutionary conflict of the present is the struggle of the working class against capitalism.

The walkout by members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 614, whose contract expired on March 31, has brought linemen, gas workers, mechanics and call-center employees onto the picket lines after months of talks over wages, pensions, retirement medical benefits and the demand for a unified contract.  

PECO workers are confronting not only a profitable corporation but the entire political and corporate establishment in southeastern Pennsylvania, where PECO remains parent company Exelon’s dominant electric and gas utility. The walkout began only days after Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 274, [ended](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2026/07/02/ktjp-j02.html) a nine-day strike after reaching a tentative agreement timed to restore hotel operations before the July 4 holiday.  

Philadelphia Electric Company workers launch strike for the first time in history on July 4 weekend