Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Rank & File Negotiations Team Gears up for Talks with the City & County over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

In 2009, during contract negotiations the City and the PEC were successful at negotiating 12 furlough days per year for a reduction in time of 4.6%.  This contract would be for fiscal 2010/11 & 2011/12, & Members of Local 261 ratified their tentative agreement by a vote of 398 Yes, 12 No, (this was more of a vote of support for the rank & file negotiating team than enthusiasm over the furlough days.)  Many of you are aware that  since then, the vast majority of public sector labor unions in San Francisco also reached a consensus proposal on the pension benefits that with save the City millions of dollars per year (see proposition C.)

The current MOU will expire on June 30th of this year; we don't know where the City will start this time, (there is a 200+ million dollar budget deficit projected for the 1st year,) but it doesn't matter.  What matters is that our Chief Steward Negotiators, Department Reps., City-wide Stewards, and rank & file are ready to defend and protect everything we have.

For this reason, we will meet at 12:00pm January 25, 2012, at LiUNA!, Local 261 to select our negotiations team, and plan our sessions with the City Department by Department.  We will develop on, and then execute a plan for collection proposals for incorporation into our new agreement.   Please attend the local union meeting and understand that the only way to achieve a fair contract is to have a unified front.

As always, important schedules & updates throughout the process will be found here, and at twitter/Vincecourtney & facebook/liuna261.

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