City has ZERO ideas about fixing anything (insert shrug shoulder emoji)

 Today, your MEF Union bargaining team met with the City for another round of negotiations.

Once again, the Union showed up ready to have honest conversations about solutions to the endemic recruitment and retention plaguing the City. The City – not surprisingly – did NOT show up prepared to discuss any of that. The City continued to bury its head in the sand and pretend the current crisis is nothing more than an unfortunate coincidence. Take a look at the comprehensive Union package here.

The Union made it abundantly clear that we would not accept the City's paltry wage proposals and that they would need to do way better than their current offer. We reminded them that there are dozens of other issues that are rotting the City from the inside out that needed to be addressed as well.

Their response? Nothing. Nada. The City gave us ZERO proposals and ZERO counterproposals and had ZERO responses to any of our proposals.

Ironically, the City manager released her proposed operating budget, which showed tens of millions in surplus for this year alone – a number that will only increase by the time the budget is adopted.

One thing is clear; the City isn’t going to do what’s necessary to make wages and benefits competitive enough to attract & retain staff who will deliver quality public services. Together, WE are going to have to do it.