One of Oakland’s largest municipal unions announced Thursday that its members have voted to authorize a strike if contract talks with the city continue to disappoint.
During a week-long process, a little more than 94% of IFPTE Local 21 workers voted to give their negotiators the authority to call a strike “if city officials fail to address short staffing in contract negotiations,” according to a news release from the union.
IFPTE 21 represents more than 1,000 city employees across several departments, including administrators, attorneys, engineers, architects, supervisors and managers.
“We care deeply about serving the public and don’t take striking lightly,” said Julian Ware, IFPTE 21’s Oakland vice president. “City officials should be doing everything they can to improve staffing and settle a fair contract, but instead have been stalling our negotiations for months. Our services can’t wait any longer.”
The IFPTE bargaining team has been negotiating with the city administration since the end of March. However, there has been no agreement yet, and workers believe that the city administration is not negotiating in good faith.
Thursday’s announcement comes on the heels of a similar vote by the 2,000-member Service Employees International Union Local 1021, which represents pothole repair crews, illegal dumping collection teams, park attendants, police and fire dispatchers and librarians, among other workers.
“We see so much our members could be doing for residents, but can’t do because we’re stretched so thin,” said SEIU 1021 chapter president Antoinette Blue. “Our streets could be cleaner and safer, our 911 calls could be taken more quickly, our Head Starts could accept more kids, except none of this can happen because we don’t have the people here to do the work.”
Union leaders said the last time city workers went on strike was in 2017, when SEIU Local 1021 walked out for a week and were joined in sympathy strikes by IFPTE 21 and IBEW Local 1245.
We see so much our members could be doing for residents, but can’t do because we’re stretched so thin.
Antoinette Blue, SEIU 1021 chapter president
The labor unrest follows a September vote by the Oakland City Council to approve a new 14% wage hike over five years for the city’s police union.
The pay raise is accompanied by “longevity premiums,” additional pay bumps based on seniority that can be as high as 15% of an officer’s base salary for 20-year veterans.
The agreement also includes concessions from the police union, the Oakland Police Officers’ Association, in the form of health care and retirement contributions designed to offset the cost of longevity premiums.
The net cost to the city for the agreement over five years is about $72 million, according to a report from Oakland’s human resources director, Mary Hao.
The OPOA agreement also sets new rules for overtime by requiring officers to get the chief or the chief’s designee to sign off on those hours.
It also contains a “me too” clause, which allows OPOA to receive even higher pay hikes if other city unions — like IFPTE and SEIU — negotiate better terms for their own contracts.
City officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
