Building for Our Next Fight!

We live in an era of great inequality where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Our Country, our State, and our County are experiencing a tremendous economic boom while we're falling further and further behind. The County is spending millions to purchase new buildings, renovate old ones, and increase top pay for Administrators while we work in understaffed buildings getting paid the bare minimum for our survival.

We are saddled with debt, forced out of our homes because of raising rents, working multiple jobs to make ends meet. We deserve better. We deserve respect, both on the job and in our paycheck.

In this context we began contract negotiations in the spring. We spent months preparing contract language to increase our protections on the job and to strengthen our union rights to fight for what’s right. We fought against favoritism and supervisory abuse by proposing seniority language for transfers, promotions and shift bids; preferential hiring for limited duration and substitute workers; and anti-bullying and harassment language to make it harder for supervisors and managers to hold us in fear.

We fought for real raises for all. Our Local proposed a 15% wage increase because we need dollars added to our pay, not dimes. We fought for affordable insurance for all because no one should have to be sick and afraid to go to the doctors. Did we get all we asked for? Of course not. But we knew what our people needed and that's what we asked for.

It turned out management had a few things they wanted. They wanted to move towards a new merit-based pay system and get rid of steps. They wanted to take the option of sick and vacation away from a new hires, denying them the option of greater accruals and pay outs when leaving the County. They wanted the power to remove union leaders from our roles if they didn't like what we were doing.

They wanted merit pay. We fought that back. They wanted new hires to be automatically enrolled in PTO and we fought that back. They wanted language to weaken our union leaders and we fought that back too.

And we made some wins too: expansion of funeral leave language and rights to leave work after a traumatic event. A general wage adjustment, under the 2.9% rate of inflation but in line with other contracts in the area. 

These gains may seem modest but they were hard won. It was a direct result of our collective actions that we beat back these take backs. It was because we were visible in the workplace in our green t-shirts, attended rallies, called commissioners, signed petitions, and showed up in force at Commissioner meetings that we moved them.

Fighting for steps was a hard battle and a battle we lost. It turned out step grids had been removed from the contract years ago and there was no mention of steps in the language around pay. We didn’t get steps but we did fight back any changes to the way performance increases are given.

If our next contract is approved by you, the members, we will have three years to build for our next fight. We will need to be organized and willing to take action to build for our next struggle. We don't get respect and we don’t get increases as a favor from the Employer. We get it only when we demand it and fight like hell for us, for our families, and for the people we serve.