On Wednesday, the City gave the Union’s bargaining team a counter proposal that included a quarter of a percent (0.25%) movement from their last proposal for a 3-year contract at 3.5%, 3.25%, and 3%. The City also rejected outright almost all of the remaining issues the Union had on the table. Things like real paid family leave, return of the 5% non-pensionable, PTO being counted towards overtime when mandated to work OT, retention pay, and so much more.
For the last few weeks, the City has been a broken record about how “disappointed they were” in city employees for not reducing our wage proposal. If you’ll recall, the City even attempted to strong-arm the Union using an illegal bargaining stunt and let us know they would refuse to have meaningful discussions on other topics until we showed movement on wages. In a good-faith effort to restart negotiations and get the City back to good-faith bargaining, the Union made some significant movement in our wage proposal to the City on Wednesday. We reduced our offer and proposed a three-year agreement with yearly wage increases of 8.5%, 8%, and 6.5%.
In an insulting, tone-deaf, but entirely predictable move…
It is clear to members of your Union bargaining team that logic, and doing the right thing don’t matter at the bargaining table or to the City’s management team. The City is taking what the Union is proposing and trying to achieve and then misrepresenting it to our City's leaders. That, or the City Council is truly not understanding the scope of the City’s staffing crisis and its effects on the public services.
At times like these, the only thing we have left to do is take power into our own hands, show that we have strength in numbers, and let the public know what’s going on so we can get them behind us too. Our jobs and communities depend on it. See our MEF events page for more information or RSVP now to sign up for a rally or two.
Bargaining on Wednesday was unbelievable…
First, some necessary background. For those that don’t already know, for these negotiations, instead of using the Office of Employee Relations team, the City contracted with a Union-busting law firm and high-priced lawyers to negotiate against us – the City’s staff. The City is paying its chief negotiator $345 an hour and has agreed to give this law firm up to $424,500 to fight against City workers. Imagine if the City valued its workforce the same way it valued the people they hire to negotiate against our interests. What a community that would be.
Okay, are you sufficiently irritated yet? Good, us too. Now back to Wednesday…
Colleagues,
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.
On Tuesday, April 25th, a couple of hundred members of MEF Local 101, Local 21, and ABMEI met outside of City Hall and marched into City Council chambers together. Their plan was simple, deliver a petition over 75 feet long that contained the names and signatures of over 2,000 City workers!
The petition had a straightforward message…
