San Jose city employees begin vote on whether to authorize strike
SAN JOSE — Two unions that represent nearly 4,500 San Jose city employees began voting Tuesday on whether to authorize a three-day strike over what the unions say are chronic understaffing issues and low pay for city workers.
The unions will be collecting ballots through Friday and plan to announce the results at an event in San Jose on Monday.
The unions, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21 and the Municipal Employees' Federation-American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 101, represent thousands of workers in the city, including emergency dispatch, code enforcement, librarians, airport staff and engineers.
The workers' contract with the city expired on June 30, and they have been working without one since.
Workers represented by the unions have demanded a pay increase of 7% for the 2023-24 fiscal year, while the city responded with a counter-offer of a 5% raise.
"We are committed to negotiating a deal that's fair to everyone — our workers and our residents who rely on the essential services our city provides," said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan in a statement. "But the hard truth is, this money has to come from somewhere. If my council colleagues want to go beyond our last, best and final offer of a 5% raise next year, they will have to identify which core city services they are willing to cut."
Scarlet Darmousseh, a radio dispatcher from the San Jose Fire Department says that dispatch workers usually work 8-14 hours shifts six days a week due to staff vacancies. People calling for emergency services in San Jose are sometimes facing long wait times when all other dispatchers are busy, said Darmousseh.
"I've told the city it's a real liability to have us so overworked and understaffed when we're taking life or death phone calls, handling fires on the radio, people needing to be pulled out of cars that they're trapped in and things like that," said Darmousseh. "It gets really impactful in the 911 system when we're so understaffed, but it is affecting everyone throughout the city."
She said that 911 centers often have issues with understaffing, but she has never seen the problem get this severe in her seven years working for the city. Darmousseh said that many city workers use San Jose as "training ground" to get experience in city government before moving on to another city that can offer better wages.
"I know some of us are doing the work of two or three people, but we're getting paid less than someone who works in Santa Clara or Sunnyvale," said Darmousseh.
According to John Tucker, a representative for MEF-AFSCME Local 101, said that there were 1,000 open positions in city government across departments at one point this year.
"We're trying to do whatever we can to get service delivery to our residents back up to an acceptable level, because the core services and infrastructure of our city is crumbling as a result of vacancies that have been a problem for years," said Tucker.
Tucker says that a strike could have a massive impact on the city and its residents, with disruptions to summer programs hosted by the San Jose Parks and Recreation department, as well as temporary closures of libraries and the city zoo, and major delays at the San Jose International airport.
Jeffrey Buchanan, who is the director of policy at Working Partnerships USA, a think tank that works with the city unions to support their efforts, said that the mayor's claims that salary increases would lead to service cuts are false.
According to a study released by Working Partnerships USA on Monday, the city's budgets often don't take into account funds that were budgeted, but did not get spent, like salaries for vacant positions in government.
According to the study, the city claims to save approximately $31 million, but data from the city's website reviewed by Working Partnerships USA shows the actual number at $178 million.
"This data makes it clear that this is an eminently solvable crisis. The tools are within reach of the mayor and the City Council," said Buchanan. "So, it's just a matter of, are they willing to act or are they going to let inaction get the better of them and allow for significant losses of city services?"