In Case You Missed It: Staff Up San Jose In The Press
A planned walkout by San Jose city workers has been averted after a tentative agreement with the city and two unions, according to a union coalition official on Tuesday.
Averting a strike that would have disrupted services in Northern California’s largest city, unions representing over half of San Jose’s administrative workforce on Monday reached a tentative deal with city leaders.
Next Tuesday, nearly 4,500 San José city workers are planning to walk off the job for three days. KQED’s Guy Marzorati explains how we got here, and what could happen next.
"I really want to work for the City of San Jose, I care about it deeply," said Sarah Abroff, an associate transportation specialist, "I happen to love the work that I do. I love my department and I don't want to leave."
"There are a lot of other ways in a budget that’s multi-billions of dollars to find just enough resources so that our workers can try to just tread water, try to survive, in one of the most expensive places to live in the nation," said Ash Kalra, State Assembly member, Dist. 27.
If the strike does happen, the economy of the Bay Area's largest city could feel some far-reaching impacts. Local businesses would feel the absence of city workers who operate services such as public infrastructure maintenance, city planning, building and code enforcement, public safety, and transportation.
Between two unions - MEF-AFSCME Local 101 and IFPTE Local 21 - city employees are marking day one of a monumental strike vote. If authorized, the looming three-day strike would be the largest San Jose has seen in 40 years.
"It's basically like San Jose is kind of a training ground for people to come and get experience and get some knowledge about the job and then they just take jobs at other cities that pay more and have less work for them to do," said Scarlet Darmousseh, a 911 fire dispatcher.
“We’re [each] doing one-and-a-half if not two jobs” she said. “In the past six months, we closed four new construction deals, and it was extremely difficult. We had people who felt extremely burnt out afterwards…”
More than 4,000 San Jose city employees are prepared to go on strike if their unions fail to reach an agreement regarding an expired contract. José Martínez reports.
“A strike could not only impact summer travel, it would impact the ability of 911 and fire response times, and the ability for parks to be cleaned up and libraries to operate,” said Jean Cohen, executive officer of the South Bay Labor Council. “It’s a big deal to go on strike, and we’d like to see the mayor take it equally as seriously so we can avoid one.”
The South Bay Labor Council submitted a letter to councilmembers on June 29 expressing its continued disappointment in the council’s decision to recess without reaching an agreement before the contracts expired. The letter warns of a strike, which workers are prepared to do if they don’t hear from city in the coming weeks.
“People leave all the time so we lose institutional knowledge. It puts things on hold and it’s a scramble for everyone else to try to pick up the projects…”
Negotiations with the city’s biggest municipal employee union, the Municipal Employees Federation AFSCME, Local 101 – which represents about 70 percent of this year’s nearly 3,500 workers whose contracts expire at the end of the month – are continuing.
