Oakland, CA – Last night the Oakland City Council voted unanimously to approve successor labor contracts with the City’s two largest civilian employee unions, bringing closure to contract negotiations with Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Local 1021 and International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), Local 21. The prior agreements expired on June 30, 2019.
The term of the new, two-year contracts will cover July 1, 2019 to June 30, 2021, and provide a 6% wage increase over two years. Additionally, the City continues to pay 100% of active employee health care costs at the full family level (~$25,000 per employee/year) and absorb 100% of pension cost increases of more than $8 million in FY 2019-20.
The cost of the labor agreements is approximately $27.3 million over two fiscal years ($8.8 million in FY 2019-20 and $18.5 million in FY 2020-21).
The first-year cost of the agreements are accounted for in the Adopted Budget for the current fiscal year (Year 1 of the two-year budget, FY 2019-20). The second-year costs of the agreement exceed the Year 2 Adopted Budget appropriations by $7.3 million, and will be addressed by amending the FY 2020-21 budget at mid-cycle in June 2020.
Pursuant to “me too” parity agreements with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), Local 1245 and the Confidential Management Employee Association (CMEA), the wages of employees represented by those two unions as well as unrepresented employees will be increased to match the increases agreed to in the new contracts at a cost of $0.9 million over two years.
Though the City proposed minor adjustments to the hiring process during negotiations to help fill vacancies and increase City services, the City dropped those proposals in order to reach a comprehensive agreement with the employee unions.
Contracts with all seven of the City’s labor unions/bargaining groups are now closed.
# # #