SF Weekly Learns Details of Mayor, SEIU's 'Tentative Agreement'

In a joint statement as sparse as the mahogany furniture selection at IKEA, Mayor Gavin Newsom and the SEIU Local 1021 announced a "tentative agreement to restructure the existing collective bargaining agreement."

 The SEIU is the city's largest union; its representatives claim to represent roughly 14,000 city workers. The text of the joint statement -- in its entirety -- is reprinted below:

"The goal of this tentative agreement is to protect vital services for San Franciscans, minimize layoffs to employees, preserve the integrity of the collective bargaining agreement, and assist the City with its economic recovery."

Calls to the SEIU, city controller, and mayor's office have not yet been returned.

Update, 3:05 p.m.: An SEIU worker in the know told SF Weekly the details of the proposed agreement, arrived at after a "27-hour marathon":

• The SEIU is giving up four paid holidays and agreeing to four furlough days;

• The union has agreed to return its Children's Fund to the city;

• The SEIU in the recent past successfully won $2 million in a suit regarding the laundry at Laguna Honda Hospital. The union will now let the city keep the money;

• The city has agreed to delay layoffs until August;

• SEIU workers will still receive an 8 percent planned raise, but this is offset by union employees paying 7.5 percent more toward their retirements (that the city had been on the hook for). The net raise for SEIU workers is 0.5 percent.
  

• The SEIU worker believed the restructuring could save the city more than $36 million.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd applauded the move. He answered "yes" emphatically when asked if he felt other unions would fall into line and make restructuring agreements. He answered in the affirmative once again when asked if he felt it would happen quickly.

UPDATE, 2:55 p.m.: SEIU Local 1021 spokesman Steve Stallone says he is not at liberty to discuss details of the proposed agreement until it can be ratified by a vote of SEIU membership. Stallone confirmed that San Francisco's SEIU workers were scheduled to receive raises on April 4. He said he cannot confirm nor deny if that raise will still take place. 

Should the SEIU -- which represents roughly 14,000 city workers -- ratify the agreement, it could prompt the city's smaller unions to stop toeing the waters and jump in the contract re-structuring pool.

"Certainly other unions are looking at us and what we are able to do because we are the largest," Stallone says.