CMCEA members,
Since our last update, your Negotiations Committee has continued to meet with the City and make progress toward a successor agreement.
- June 8: We met with the City to receive their counterproposal. The City made some movement on wages, although not enough to close the gap between our proposal and the City’s. We also reached two additional tentative agreements on smaller contract items.
- June 10: We met again to present our counterproposal and continued discussions on the issues that remain most important to CMCEA members.
- June 17: The City presented another counterproposal. While they made additional movement on wages, their proposal does not address some of the key concerns of our membership, particularly on two key proposals that would provide meaningful long-term benefits. We had hoped to reach a tentative agreement at this meeting, but the City’s representatives did not have authority to negotiate beyond their current proposal.
On June 23, your Negotiations Committee met to evaluate the City’s latest proposal and develop our strategy moving forward.
Our next negotiations session was scheduled for June 29. However, because the July 7 City Council meeting has been canceled, the City’s team will not seek additional bargaining authority until the July 21 Council meeting. Given that timeline, we agreed to use this time to further strengthen our proposals, refine our strategy, and prepare our next counter proposal. We are currently working to reschedule our meeting for the week of July 13.
Although our current contract expires June 30, all terms and conditions of the agreement will remain in effect while negotiations continue. In addition, both the City’s proposal and CMCEA’s proposal include retroactive implementation of negotiated wage increases. While we are mindful of the contract expiration, our priority remains reaching the strongest agreement possible before presenting a tentative agreement to the membership for consideration.
As always, we appreciate your continued support and engagement throughout this process. We will continue to keep you informed as negotiations progress.
In Solidarity,
CMCEA Negotiations Committee
