San Jose Council Approves Three-Year Contracts for About 4,000 City Workers as One Union Group Holds Out
The San Jose City Council voted unanimously on October 27 to approve new three-year labor contracts covering roughly 4,000 city workers represented by IFPTE Local 21 and MEF-AFSCME Local 101, ending months of tense bargaining that came close to a strike. But members of the Association of Maintenance Supervisory Personnel (AMSP), one of three IFPTE Local 21 chapters in the talks, rejected the deal, leaving one front of the dispute unresolved.
The tentative agreement reached on October 8 provides a 3 percent raise in each of the three years, a lump-sum payment equal to 1 percent of base pay, and a further 1 percent raise in the third year if the city meets budget benchmarks, along with provisions addressing displacement risks from the city's rapid adoption of new technology tools. Negotiations had run since February; the previous contract expired at the end of June, and thousands of union members voted in August to authorize a strike.
'This is definitely good news that we got to an agreement that I think is fair to our workers,' Mayor Matt Mahan said. AMSP, which represents about 140 maintenance supervisors and managers, notified the city of its rejection on Friday, October 30, and city officials expect to brief councilmembers in closed session next week. San Jose's $5.5 billion budget, passed in June, closed a $50 million deficit using reserves.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 圣何塞市政厅圆形大厅。The wub 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / San Jose City Hall rotunda. Photo by The wub, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
