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Berkeley Reaches Last-Minute Deal With More Than 500 City Workers, Averting 2-Day Strike

Samantha Kennedy
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A Berkeley Public Library employee at the North Branch library checks in returned books. Berkeley librarians are among the hundreds of city workers who threatened to walk off the job starting Tuesday in a push for higher wages.  (Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)

The union that represents more than 500 Berkeley librarians and other city workers reached a tentative agreement with the city Monday night, staving off a strike that would have caused significant service disruptions.

The tentative agreement with SEIU Local 1021 — which also represents the city’s building inspectors and workers in recreation and senior centers — includes 14.5% in pay increases over the next three years, expanded health benefits, and additional employee bonuses and holidays, according to an announcement by the union.

The deal came just hours before workers had planned to begin a two-day strike to protest Berkeley’s “unfair labor practices,” the union said. Inadequate compensation has led to worker retention and recruitment problems, resulting in serious staffing shortages in many city departments, the union said.

The agreement also includes expanded bereavement leave, stronger protections against harassment and other forms of discrimination, and hazard pay for employees assigned to work with the unhoused population.

Workers will vote on the agreement over “the next week or so,” a union representative said Tuesday but declined to comment further until then. Bargaining leaders are recommending the deal be approved.

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Workers initially authorized the strike in late October following months of bargaining with no agreement to show for it. The union filed various unfair labor practice charges against the city during negotiations, accusing its representatives of refusing to bargain in good faith and “unfairly denying union representation.”

The contract for the more than 500 city workers expired at the end of June and also prompted a two-day strike by about a dozen Berkeley day-camp workers in August and a “practice picket” last month in front of City Hall.

“The problems facing Berkeley residents and Berkeley workers alike are urgent, but for months, the city has been refusing to bargain in good faith to address our issues,” Julia Wiswell, a city librarian, said last week.

City spokesperson Matthai Chakko confirmed the tentative agreement in an email but did not offer further comment.

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