David Nerhood: I’m in a little bit of a daze. I’m happy it’s where we need to go. But I’m thinking it’s a shame it had to come to this. I would really prefer not to strike. I had a lot of nervous nights around it. I was on the negotiating team, but there’s this aura here. There’s this aura about good things are going to happen.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: But 4500 people whose literal job is to keep the city running, there’s a lot of people. So what do all these employees say they want from the city that they aren’t getting? And what’s a strike going to mean for all the crucial services they provide? That’s coming up right after this.
Guy Marzorati: We’re talking about a lot of workers. I mean, this is nearly 4500 employees in jobs all across the city.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Guy Marzorati is a politics and government correspondent for KQED, who’s based in San Jose.
Guy Marzorati: Literally from A to Z, you have airport employees at San Jose Mineta. You have the zoo workers at Happy Hollow. In between that, you have, you know, code inspectors, people managing city parks, librarians, city planners, all of these employees had their contract expire on June 30th and are now, you know, potentially going to be striking next week. And the plan is a work stoppage that’s set to begin six in the morning on Tuesday, August 15th, and last until six in the morning on Friday, August 18th. That does not include, however, police and fire. They’re not allowed to strike in California. And besides that, they are separate unions that have their own existing contracts with the city.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Why is this happening? Like, how did we get here?
Guy Marzorati: Yeah, well, one huge piece of this is San Jose’s tax base. I mean, historically, it’s been the only major city in the U.S. that has a smaller daytime population than a nighttime population. And what that basically means is there’s not a lot of jobs here. Historically, people live in this city, but go to work for companies that are located elsewhere in the bay. And that’s led to a lot of challenges with the tax base. So on a per capita basis, San Jose is getting, you know, lower property tax revenue, lower sales tax revenue than its neighbors. And then what that translates to is a lack of funding for city services.
Michael Jun: I think it’s kind of well understood that we are underpaid compared to other municipalities.
Guy Marzorati: So Michael Jun:works on residential development in the city’s housing department. He talks a lot about making up the gap between what he’s paid and kind of what he thinks he deserves.
Michael Jun: What we’re hoping for is a little bit of kind of just trying to make up the gap between what we feel we deserve and what we feel is required to provide the level of services our residents deserve and what the city right now is willing to give.
Guy Marzorati: He mentioned anecdotally at least he sees colleagues leaving.
Michael Jun: I don’t know. Just like last month, we had several closings and new construction groundbreaking. But if we had more people, we could have built more affordable housing and quicker.
Guy Marzorati: So I also talked to a city employee named David Nerhood.
David Nerhood: I’m a 22-year veteran of the city of San Jose. I work the first.
Guy Marzorati: He’s a financial analyst with the Department of Transportation. Before that, he worked with the Department of Public Works.
David Nerhood: I’m in a little bit of a daze. I’m happy It’s where we need to go. But I’m thinking it’s a shame it had to come to this. I would really prefer not to strike. I had a lot of nervous nights around it. I was on the negotiating team. So I know that we weren’t where we needed to be. So I’m fully in favor of it. And I think the nervousness.
Guy Marzorati: He used this word. Training ground. He that’s how he described San Jose.
David Nerhood: So you get these kids coming out of college, and I’ve worked with so many of them, and they’re some of the most capable young kids that I meet. And I’m getting excited.
Guy Marzorati: You talked about all these experiences he’s had with young planners or young engineers that he’s helped train in his department who have then, you know, in a year or maybe two years, they call him, say, you know, David, thanks for everything, but I’ve got a better job offer in Fremont, in Santa Clara, somewhere else. And he loses that kind of budding talent.
David Nerhood: They’ll get paid better with probably a less complicated workload. I don’t know the word to use for doing the same exact work at that other place.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: The unions want a pay increase over the next three fiscal years. In their most recent offer. Workers would get a 7% increase this year, 6% the following, and 5% after that. The city is offered a 5%, 4% and 3% raise over that same period. And the city says that’s because they can’t really afford to go any higher. I know you talked with Mayor Matt Mehan. How has he responded to these demands to pay workers more?
Guy Marzorati: Yes. I’ll start by noting that the unions are actually negotiating with officials in the city manager’s office, not the mayor’s office. So in this setup, may hands just one vote on the council. The council can meet with the city manager and give direction on what can be offered. But all that said, Mahen has been kind of the de facto spokesperson for the city side of bargaining.
Matt Mahan: So we have limited resources. We’re always trying to strike a fair balance for both residents and city workers.
Guy Marzorati: He’s basically made the argument that the fiscal year already started. The council, if they offer more than 5%, they’re going to go back into the budget that they approved in June and find cuts.
Matt Mahan: The math is very clear, and I certainly don’t want to see and won’t support cuts to police or fire staffing, library hours, any other essential services. At the margins, there may be ways to be creative, but we have to find ongoing funding for wage increases.
Guy Marzorati: So far, Macon’s kind of stuck to that argument. That being said, he hasn’t really gone on the offensive against the unions, and that’s something I’m going to be watching in the days to come. Now that we’re edging towards this massive work stoppage, does he like kind of heat up his rhetoric and even go as far as like attacking the unions, attacking city workers?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: I mean, what do we make of that idea guy that, like there isn’t enough money to raise wages by the amount that the union wants? I mean, they feel like that’s sort of something we hear often. Like what do we make of that idea that it would require cuts to other things that people probably won’t be happy about?
Guy Marzorati: Yeah. So I think, you know, that all of that remains to be seen. Like it’s impossible to know until the council would be pressed in that situation if they had to go above whatever they allocated for raises in this fiscal year to go back and amend the budget. And, you know, you often do get into kind of accounting tricks where you budget something based on excess funds that you think you might have at the end of the year. Mehan wants to avoid that. Union leaders have made the argument that the city often ends up with this kind of excess funds and that that might be a place to look in the unions opinions for ways to get the existing city employees higher wages in the short term.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Well, I mean, 4500 city workers going on strike. That’s pretty significant. Is the city prepared?
Guy Marzorati: No. I mean, you can prepare, but there is no way you can completely mitigate the effects. I mean, San Jose has about 7000 employees. We’re talking about unions representing 4500 people. Now, it would be a huge impact. And the city acknowledges that.
Guy Marzorati:Well, there are likely to be disruptions and a lot of that will depend on how many people adhere to the strike itself.
Guy Marzorati: But I talked with Kip Harkness. He’s a deputy city manager. He said with the caveat that, you know, it’s impossible to know the full effect of a strike until we see how many people wake up that morning and hit the picket lines. But he expects libraries, community centers to be among the places that residents would really notice a drop off in service.
Guy Marzorati:Where there would be service difficulties. We have plans for workers, contractors to continue the work.
Guy Marzorati: Got it. So it’d be bringing in contractors to maybe fill some of those positions.
Guy Marzorati: Perhaps contractors to fill some of those positions, as well as for certain positions that are critical to public health and safety. Those can be prohibited from striking garbage.
Guy Marzorati: Recycling services are contracted out, so they’re not going to be affected by a strike. But outside of that, union officials have warned of really broad impacts. I mentioned the airport. They say there could be flight delays, youth summer camps getting canceled. So starting next week, over the course of those three days, residents could notice, you know, a lot of changes.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: There is still time between now and the start of the strike, right, guys? So does that mean that things could take a turn before the strike even happens?
Guy Marzorati: Yeah, there’s still definitely the possibility that a deal gets reached. The city council met Tuesday with the city manager in closed session. Again, they could kind of give direction to raise the offer. There’s also this possibility that Megan floated when I talked with him about the second and third years of the contract. So maybe there’s ways to increase those raises based on how much tax revenue comes in.
Matt Mahan: If our revenue comes in higher than expected, I think it would be appropriate for us to have a modest increase that’s automatically triggered if there’s more money. If we have the money there, I would be perfectly happy with increasing wages.
Guy Marzorati: Or even just build those raises in. And then you go into the next budget process knowing that you have to account for those. I think what the what Mehan and like minded city officials are really concerned about is this current fiscal year where they’ve already passed the budget. That process is done. They’re worried about having to go revisit those numbers.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: How would you maybe sum up this moment in San Jose? Like, why do you think this is happening now?
Guy Marzorati: Well, I’d say the mood is probably, you know, a bit uncertain. There hasn’t been a major strike in the city like this since 1981. So this whole experience is going to be new for a lot of residents, even a lot of city officials. I mean, they’ve never experienced something like that. As to why this is happening now, I mean, we are in the hot Labor Summer, I guess, and we’re seeing this kind of extend to the municipal sector, not just in San Jose, L.A., too. There was a one day strike on Tuesday by thousands of city employees there. And it’s the same story you hear in the private sector, right? The cost of living has skyrocketed with inflation. And again, when you’re only able to bargain or negotiate these wages on a set timetable over the span of this contract that expired on June 30th, that’s when we’ve seen this major inflation occur in the country. So there hasn’t been an opportunity for a lot of workers to go to the table and in their mind, kind of catch up to all the rising prices that have been baked in over the last few years. You may only get this one chance every few years to secure a boost like this. The stakes are magnified by inflation, and I think that’s why you’re seeing this standoff.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Guy, thanks.
Guy Marzorati: Thank you.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: That was Guy Marzorati, a politics and government correspondent for KQED, who’s based in San Jose. Guy’s also the producer of the Political Breakdown podcast, which you can find wherever you found the Bay. This episode was cut down and edited by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Maria Esquinca is our producer. She scored this episode and added of the tape extra production support from me. If you like this episode, consider sharing it with a friend. And I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you next time.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra: Hot Labor Summer. Did you make that up?
Guy Marzorati: No, I did not. Okay. But on top of hot Labor Summer, it’s also just a hot summer. Can I say that, too? This is all, you know, taking place in just a hot South Bay summer as well.
