Our Unit 1 bargaining team reports a big day. The team reached ten different tentative agreements with the State, seven of which were economic proposals. We’re building some momentum as we face the June 30 expiration of our current contract, due in large part to the pressure we’re applying weekly to bring home a good contract for our members.
Today’s success was clouded by more frustrating behavior by State negotiators. The team saw numerous examples where the State appeared disinterested, unprepared, or lacked the authority for substantive bargaining.
“We’re getting a request to ‘discuss concepts,’ rather than the typical back-and-forth bargaining methodology,” said Susan Rodriguez. The State seems to be asking to see our cards before we play them instead of showing us their position through written responses. “We can’t make real progress until we see actual, written responses to our proposals, especially to our economic proposals.
We’re fighting to continue the reclass efforts for nearly 9,000 Information Technology workers by rolling over language from the last contract that would allow our Union and the State to review the impacts of their salary structure after a comprehensive change in IT classifications. Even though the State agrees this part of the reclass hasn’t been completed, they initially pushed back by proposing to delete the language that would allow discussions between our Union and the State to continue. But ultimately we prevailed and will be able to address this in the coming months after we win our contract.
“While we’ve trained and prepared as a bargaining team with the goal of advancing our members, we feel like CalHR (State negotiators) doesn’t know how to make progress in bargaining,” said Vincent Green, Unit 1 team member.
We experienced similar issues with the State’s behavior over our long-ignored demand to update the CA Lottery’s Scratchers sales bonus. “This bonus hasn’t been changed in 25 years, while the Lottery’s revenue has grown to $9 billion,” said team member and District Sales Representative Mike Ramos. “We talk concepts, but we still haven’t seen a formal counter-proposal.”
Our fight continues for a solution to the EDD Permanent Intermittent ratios and fair treatment for our members. We are pushing to continue the current ratios of permanent intermittent employees, so the State continues to hire enough permanent full-time Unit 1 employees to complete the work.
Our Unit 1 team reached tentative agreement on ten different contract sections today. Of those, nine were roll-over language, wins from previous contract cycles, while one had a language change. Seven of those TAs were economic proposals.
- 5.21.1 – IT Reclassification Committee
- 11.22.1 – Institutional Worker Supervision Pay
- 11.23.1 – Out of State Pay Differential
- 11.24.1 – Bay Area Recruitment and Retention Pay Differential
- 11.26.1 – Arduous Duty Differential for FLSA employees
- 11.29.1 – Investment Officer I, II and III, Incentive Award Program
- 11.31.1 – Chartered Financial Analyst Pay Differential
- 11.33.1 – Hearing Reporters, PUC, Pay Differential
- 13.15.1 – EDD Determinations Schedule (language change)
- Side Letter 12.1 – CalEPA Agreement
You can read the details of these and all current contract articles at contract.seiu1000.org
Unit 1 returns to the table next week, on Tuesday, June 27. However, with just ten days remaining until our contract expires, bargaining sessions could happen at any time.
To keep updated, and to see updates on other bargaining unit contract sessions, please visit the Contract Action Center page at www.seiu1000.org
There’s real truth to the Local 1000 slogan, Stronger Together. We only win a great contract with a strong Local 1000 membership. So, if you’re not already a member, we encourage you to join us today.
If you are a member, help support the bargaining team by purpling up on Wednesday and attending our upcoming rally in Los Angeles on June 22.