Committee forwards four-year contract extensions with six city unions

The Board of Supervisors' Government Audit and Oversight Committee voted on October 15 to send the full Board a set of four-year contract extensions with six unions of city workers, after amending one of the agreements to strike language that would have created a citywide labor-management committee.

The six items came to the committee as amendments to existing agreements, or memoranda of understanding. They cover members of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, Local 21, AFL-CIO; the Municipal Executives' Association; Service Employees International Union, Local 1021; the San Francisco District Attorney Investigators' Association; Laborers International Union, Local 261; and the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry, Local 38. All six had already been ratified by the unions before the hearing.

Staff presented the group as a set of extensions that keeps contracts in force past the dates they were due to expire. Each extension runs four years and provides raises paid in stages over the term, with the raise dates laid out for the committee. The agreements also carry a no-layoff guarantee for the workers covered for the length of the term. They create or expand labor-management committees, where labor and management are meant to work through issues before they escalate, and they add mediation and expedited arbitration for disputes the committees do not resolve. Staff told the committee the terms give the city budget certainty and give the covered workforce stability.

The committee heard the six as one block rather than taking them one at a time. Members asked questions at several points but did not object to the package or propose changes to what it pays. The only change came on the Local 21 agreement, file 261080, after a union representative asked for technical corrections to that document. The chair moved to strike the language creating a citywide labor-management committee, so that the agreement matched what the two sides had negotiated. The amendment passed on a roll call. Its effect is narrow: no citywide committee is created under that agreement. The labor-management committees written into the other agreements stay as negotiated.

Members' questions centered on how the agreements work in practice and what they cost. On the Municipal Executives' Association agreement, file 261081, members asked how often unresolved issues can be elevated to the Mayor, and staff walked through the process. Members also asked about the budget impact of the raises. Staff said the Mayor's Budget Office would provide that detail. The committee did not act on funding, and the agreements go to the Board as written.

The Service Employees International Union, Local 1021 agreement, file 261082, turned on the same subject: how a bargaining unit raises issues with the Mayor or the human resources director. Most unions may bring a set number of issues a year to one of those offices. This unit already had that right, and the extension keeps it, with fewer opportunities a year than the unit held before.

The Laborers International Union, Local 261 agreement, file 261084, drew a question about which employees the citywide figures cover. Staff explained that Municipal Transportation Agency employees are counted in those numbers, but that the agency's service-critical bargaining units are handled by the MTA board rather than this committee. Some MTA workers covered by the larger agreements are included in the package before the committee.

The remaining two, with the San Francisco District Attorney Investigators' Association, file 261083, and the plumbers' Local 38, file 261085, drew clarifying questions and no objections. Staff described the raise dates in the plumbers' agreement and the labor-management framework that carries across the package.

Public comment opened once the last of the six items was called. One person addressed the committee, and the chair then closed comment.

The committee forwarded all six agreements to the full Board of Supervisors with a positive recommendation as a committee report. The amendment to the Local 21 agreement and the referral each passed on roll-call votes. Members thanked the labor and city negotiating teams.

What the votes change is the next step, not the terms. The raises, the schedule for paying them and the no-layoff guarantee were settled in bargaining and ratified by the unions, and the committee did not reopen them. Board approval is the remaining step before the extensions take effect.