Early Saturday morning, the SEIU Local 1000 bargaining team reached an overall Tentative Agreement with the State. If ratified, the contract would significantly raise the wage floor for tens of thousands of state workers. It represents the largest three-year contract in Local 1000 history.
At the master table, we negotiated a retroactive pay raise for all employees, won retroactive special salary adjustments for more than 300 job classifications, maintained the health care stipend with no expiration date, reduced the pre-retirement (OPEB) funding, secured a health facility retention payment, and added, changed, or preserved a number of skill-based differentials, allowances, and other reimbursements that factor into our state income. Our general salary increase, our wage equity increase, and our unit-based Special Salary Adjustments are retroactive to July 1, 2023.
Here are the highlights from the Unit 21 (Professional Educators and Librarians) bargaining table:
We instilled and reinforced respect for our Unit 21 professionals:
- Protected our professional status by preserving language in three contract sections:
- 19.19.21 – Work Week Group E – Policy (FLSA-Exempt);
- 19.19.21(a) – Guidelines for Applying Work Week Group E Policy; and
- 21.16.21 – Professional Responsibility
- Enhanced our professional autonomy by removing a reference to work schedules from the contract
- Retained our right to convene a Professional Assessment and Development Committee
- Received commitment to discuss the potential for educational leave transfers in the new State Payroll System Project
We strengthened protections for our Unit 21 professionals:
- Enhanced due process rights for arduous pay differential requests which include receiving written responses from departments
- Protected our right to training for hostile and threatening behavior
- Protected our right to training in infectious disease control
- Protected our right to the alternate pre-retirement death benefit
We increased compensation for our Unit 21 professionals:
- Won special salary adjustments (SSAs) of 5% for three (3) classifications, retroactive to July 1, 2023:
- Transportation Programs Consultant, Department of Education (2683)
- Nursing Education Consultant, Department of Consumer Affairs (8250)
- Private Postsecondary Education Senior Specialist (2743)
- Secured new reimbursements of up to $200 for job-related certifications
- Increased professional development reimbursements from $75 to $200
- Increased travel reimbursement rates to federal levels
This email summary shares highlights from the Unit 21 table; you may have already received the email recap from the master table. During the ratification process, you’ll be able read and learn more detail about the Tentative Agreement. Besides email, we’ll be posting information about our Tentative Agreement on our Contract Action Center page.
What happens next?
To become a contract, our Tentative Agreement must go through a number of steps in order to become law and the document that governs our working relationship with the State. Those steps include approval by the Statewide Bargaining Advisory Committee, a ratification vote by Local 1000 membership, legislative approval, and the Governor’s signature. Click here to read more about what steps we’ll be taking.