Early Saturday morning, the SEIU Local 1000 bargaining team reached an overall Tentative Agreement with the State. If ratified, the contract would significantly raise the wage floor for tens of thousands of state workers. It represents the largest three-year contract in Local 1000 history.
At the master table, we negotiated a retroactive pay raise for all employees, won retroactive special salary adjustments for more than 300 job classifications, maintained the health care stipend with no expiration date, reduced the pre-retirement (OPEB) funding, secured a health facility retention payment, and added, changed, or preserved a number of skill-based differentials, allowances, and other reimbursements that factor into our state income. Our general salary increase, our wage equity increase, and our unit-based Special Salary Adjustments are retroactive to July 1, 2023.
Here are the highlights from the Unit 3 (Professional Educators and Librarians) bargaining table:
7 different classifications in Unit 3 received pay increases of 5% (11.1.3 Special Salary Increases). These increases are on top of the general salary increase, retroactive to July 1, 2023, and pensionable. You can read a complete list of classifications affected by these increases here.
We won a new language that pays a $500 differential to 3 teaching classifications at the Porterville Developmental Center (XX.XX.3).
Coaches and assistant coaches at our Special Schools, in four different groups, will receive an increased Coaching Differential (22.10.3) of approximately 10%
We preserved the Bargaining Unit 3 Classification and Compensation Committee (5.19.3). It’s an avenue to discuss compensation, credentialing, and the broader issues impacting recruitment and retention.
We maintained the employer’s health benefit contribution (9.1.3) for each employee for an updated amount equal to 80%, depending on Party Code.
Unit 3 employees will now enjoy the greater latitude to schedule medical appointments during the work day with an updated Hours of Work section (19.1.3)
Contract section 21.12.3 Student Discipline continues to engage the Union and the State together in the development of a written discipline program.
Stronger language in 21.25.3- Work Assignment Notification firms up management timeliness and ensures a more legitimate written explanation is provided to employees when change happens. A similar contract section 22.3.3 also has stronger language to ensure that Unit 3 members in Special Schools are getting noticed of work assignment change as soon possible.
Expanded language in 22.1.3 – Discipline and Discharge-Special Schools allows employees to have a support person and, if needed, reasonable accommodations during a disciplinary meeting with their employer as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Employees at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)/Office of Correctional Education (OCE) are now granted greater input into the creation of the 220 Day Academic Year calendar. (25.1.3)
We expanded language to allow Unit 3 employees greater planning and control of their individual development programs and career improvement. (25.7.3)
We won substantially new and improved salary schedule placement language for vocational instructors. The contract section (25.13.3) recognizes their professional skills and places them on the salary schedule accordingly.
This email summary shares highlights from the Unit 3 table; you may have already received the email recap from the master table. During the ratification process, you’ll be able read and learn more detail about the Tentative Agreement. Besides email, we’ll be posting information about our Tentative Agreement on our Contract Action Center page.
What happens next?
To become a contract, our Tentative Agreement must go through a number of steps in order to become law and the document that governs our working relationship with the State. Those steps include approval by the Statewide Bargaining Advisory Committee, a ratification vote by Local 1000 membership, legislative approval, and the Governor’s signature. Click here to read more about what steps we’ll be taking.