Negotiations Update: April 27, 2023

The OCEA negotiations team met with the County on Wednesday, April 26 for our third formal negotiations session. You will recall that in our previous meeting we provided the County with our initial bargaining proposal. You can read our latest recap here.

Wednesday's meeting was a full day which began at 9 a.m. and concluded in mid-afternoon. The County presented us with a comprehensive initial proposal, and responded to OCEA's initial proposal. Compared with opening proposals from the County in previous negotiations, its proposal set a more positive tone. The day progressed with the County and OCEA tentatively agreeing on several pro-worker issues, a hopeful sign.

Despite the generally positive tone of Wednesday’s meeting, there remains much work to be done to achieve a fair contract for OCEA members. We still need to continue to fight to undo decades of County anti-worker philosophy.

The OCEA negotiations team understands that this year presents a unique opportunity to achieve meaningful contract improvements for OCEA members, but it will take a sustained commitment by everyone involved. You responded to the OCEA negotiations survey in record numbers and your priorities are reflected in our proposals. During negotiations OCEA is addressing economic realities of OCEA members, demanding the reinvestment in public services decimated during the pandemic, confronting the new realities of public-sector service, addressing the recruitment/retention crisis, and doing more to help OCEA members retire with dignity.

The OCEA negotiations team left Wednesday's session cautiously optimistic that bargaining is headed in the right direction. We are scheduled to meet again on Wednesday, May 3 for our next negotiations session. We are also scheduled to meet most Wednesdays until a tentative agreement is reached.

We will continue to send out an update after each negotiations session. If you know someone who needs to sign up to receive OCEA emails, they can sign up at the OCEA website!

You can view a brief training on this process here.

You can also read more Frequently Asked Questions here.

Publication Date: April 27, 2023