SEIU Local 1000 announces tentative contract for California state workers

After four months of bargaining, dozens of labor actions and eight arrests, California’s largest state employee union has reached a tentative contract agreement with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration.

The highlight of the deal is a 10% pay raise over the life of the three-year contract, which union leaders are trumpeting as a hard-fought win for members. Workers would receive a 3% increase retroactive to July 1, another 3% increase in July 2024 and then either a 4% or 3% bump in July 2025 depending on the condition of the budget, according to a Local 1000 email update.

The raises offered in the tentative agreement are a far cry from the union’s initial proposal of a 30% increase over three years, yet still a few points higher than the state’s first offer of 6%.

“This agreement promises to positively impact hundreds of job classifications across the state and directly addresses the respect, protection, and pay that we’ve been fighting for,” said Irene Green, Local 1000’s vice president for bargaining, in a statement posted to the union’s

Instagram.

The across-the-board 10% raise accompanies special salary adjustments for close to 170 different job classifications. Many of those adjustments amount to 5%. Workers in several classifications with a starting wage below $20 an hour would also receive an additional 4% general salary increase upon ratification of the deal.

In addition to raises, the union also negotiated for various health care benefits. The new deal would give any worker on a CALPERS health care plan a $165 contribution toward their monthly premium, starting in December.

The contribution has no expiration date. (Employees previously received a $260 health care stipend as part of the last contract.) Workers also will only have to contribute 3% toward funding their retiree health plans, as opposed to 3.5%.

Some Local 1000 workers would receive one-time payments as part of the agreement. Employees who work in correctional health care, state hospitals, veteran’s homes and developmental services facilities would be entitled to $1,450.

Additionally, workers at the Department of

Public Health in nine classifications would take home $1,000.

State special schools employees, including the schools for the blind and the deaf, will earn a onetime boost of $625.

Notably excluded from the special salary adjustments are two of the state’s largest job classifications — Associate Governmental Program Analysts and Staff Services Analysts.

Before members can vote to ratify the deal, the agreement must be approved by the Statewide Bargaining Advisory Committee.

The group will start reviewing the deal this weekend, Green said. More details will be released to members in the next week or two once the committee gives the green light.

The Legislature must also vote to ratify the agreement before sending the bill to Gov. Newsom’s desk for approval.

Green said on Monday that the deal reflected the bargaining team’s best effort to address issues that members brought forth. She also acknowledged that they have more work to do in future bargaining years.

“Is it everything that we wanted? No,” Green said of the current agreement. “Is it everything that we deserve? No.”