Bargaining with the city continued on June 2.

Mandatory standby for public works employees has emerged as a sticking point with management demanding significant changes to the current practice. We have met with public works employees twice on this issue and ran a survey, the overwhelming majority do not support these changes.

Bargaining was scheduled for June 5 but was canceled. The next scheduled sessions are June 8 and June 15.

We bargained on Tuesday the 23rd of May (we had originally had bargaining scheduled for May 19, but that day was canceled). It was a day that started at 8 and ended around 6. While we seem to be getting closer to an agreement, there are, as always, a couple major issues that separate us from reaching a complete 3-year agreement.  The Team has recommended that we put out the City’s and Union’s last proposals at our May 23rd session.

Your bargaining team exchanged proposals with the city today.

All of our proposals were package proposals and we believe we’re getting to a better framework. We had conversations about wages, insurance, boot reimbursement, standby and the CDL program.

Today was the last day for any new proposals and your union proposed language for paid leave Oregon and how it will be implemented.

Our next bargaining session will be May 19, if you’re interested in being an observer on your own time, let us know so that we can make arrangements.