County Negotiations Update: June 1, 2023

Dear OCEA member,

The OCEA negotiations team met with the County on Wednesday, May 31, for our seventh formal negotiations session. You can read our last recap here.

Last week the OCEA team reported that the pace of negotiations had slowed from previous sessions. The County’s previous proposal did not address several issues important to the OCEA team and only made minimal movement on others. 

On Wednesday, May 31, the County returned to a more encouraging pace. The day started with the County dropping two of their concessionary proposals. A good sign. One was to remove workers comp supplemental pay, and the second was to eliminate the PIP benefit. Both proposals would have negatively impacted OCEA members. We told the County we would not agree to remove hard fought OCEA benefits and rights. We are happy to report that the OCEA team held the line, and the County withdrew both proposals. 

OCEA was also successful in securing potential MOU improvements during the session. The County indicated they had interest in our proposal to bring back 2-step merit increases for workers who “meet expectations” and are not topped out. While we still have work to do, this is a positive development and will go far toward the County addressing its recruitment and retention crisis.

The County negotiations team will be in closed session with the County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, June 6, to receive further authority. The OCEA negotiations team meet again with the County Wednesday, June 7, for our next session. We will continue to fight for fair wages and ways to address the recruitment/retention crisis impacting the County.

AND DON'T MISS THE BLITZ! Be on the lookout for OCEA staff and workplace leaders at approximately 30 work locations June 6-8 for a workplace BLITZ! The team will be out before or after work at locations across the County educating members about negotiations. 

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER—make sure your co-workers are receiving OCEA emails and know what's happening in negotiations, too! 

In Solidarity,

OCEA

Publication Date: June 1, 2023