What’s at stake?
11 employee contracts for the City of Fresno — covering thousands of union-represented workers, from police officers to mechanics — just expired, and the city is negotiating with all of them at once for the first time in recent memory.
Now that the City of Fresno has put its $2.3 billion budget to bed, what’s next?
That would be negotiating with the city’s 11 different bargaining units, representing thousands of employees, over new contracts. All those contracts expired this month, within days of the budget passing.
Those simultaneous expiration dates across 11 city worker contracts are partly the product of last year’s bargaining cycle. In 2024, the city negotiated one-year contracts with several city workers’ unions.
Those uncharacteristically short-term contracts — compared with the two-year or three-year deals those employees were used to — took many union leaders by surprise.
“It was very unusual,” said Jesse Gonzalez, president of the City of Fresno Professional Employees Union, which went on a two-day strike last December before reaching a one-year agreement with the city.
“That was the first time we had ever been offered such a short deal,” Gonzalez said. “Before, the minimum had always been two years.”
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said the one-year contracts were a necessity then.
“My first year, we did three-year contracts for everybody. I like that a lot better,” he told Fresnoland. “But we also had some better fiscal times, and we also had some outside revenue coming in, like from American Rescue funds.”
Dyer said that the city’s intention is not to have to do single-year contracts again in this bargaining cycle.
But another bi-product of the one-year agreements is that all the unions’ contracts expired at the same time, which means negotiations are all now happening simultaneously.
It’s possible other things — like impasse proceedings, and even strikes — could also sync up down the line, something the city circumvents when contract expirations are more staggered.
That has left union reps scratching their heads about what city leaders were thinking.
“It doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me because all it’s going to take is one unit to go out on strike,” said Terri Hauschel, business representative of IUOE, Stationary Engineers, Local 39, the union representing roughly 900 of the city’s blue-collar workers, “and anybody who has the right to strike — obviously public safety does not — but anybody else that has the right to sympathy strike can.
“You can literally have the entire City of Fresno shut down.”
But for now, that’s not a huge concern for the city, Dyer said, while also acknowledging that they were aware they’d have to negotiate with all the unions at the same time.
That’s part of why the city also got a jump on negotiations, he said, beginning talks with several city unions months ago.
“I’m optimistic we’re going to get through negotiations with all the labor unions,” he said.
“I can promise you one thing: They won’t get everything they want, and we won’t get everything we want — just like the budget we passed today.”
How did we get here?
The Fresno City Employees Union (FCEA), which represents more than 900 white-collar workers for the city, was among the unions offered a one-year contract last year.
While FCEA President Tania Keller said they were surprised by the offer, her members “had a good reason” for accepting it.
That included the fact that the agreement promised the final round of raises stemming from a 2018 compensation study. The study compared wages for similar municipal jobs in different cities across California.
“Those city employees had waited years to get their salary adjusted to where it should have been,” Keller said.
“We had to see past that,” she added, alluding to the single-year term of the agreement, “and we hoped it would be a one-time thing.”
Dyer said he also hopes not to turn to such short-term contracts again in 2025.
“This year, our goal is to do multiyear contracts,” he said, “but at the same time to limit whatever potential risk or liability we have in subsequent years, whether it be year two or year three.”
Going back to the table after such a short period has presented challenges for some unions.
It was less than six months after CFPEA’s December strike, for example, that they reopened talks with the city.
“We didn’t get much of a break,” Gonzalez said.
Short-term contracts also make it difficult to gauge whether certain provisions in a new contract are actually successful or not, he added.
But, on the other hand, the quick turnaround allows the unions to pick back up where they left off with the city last year.
“I honestly don’t really mind it,” Keller said of the swift return to the table. “I was excited to get back and try to get some of the stuff (for) our members to increase morale. … And I didn’t have to wait that long.”
What’s next?
Most of the city’s 11 bargaining units already began talks with the city earlier this year before their contracts officially expired, Dyer said. They’re only in early stages, establishing ground rules for bargaining.
At this stage, he’s not concerned about strikes, or sympathy strikes, but “always prepared,” he added.
There are some legal boxes unions must check before going on strike, including going through state impasse procedures.
Some unions, like police and fire, aren’t allowed to go on strike under the law.
Dyer is hopeful negotiations could wrap up as soon as August, he said at a news conference Tuesday following the city council’s approval of the budget, but didn’t make any promises.
Dyer also again alluded to money allocated for city worker raises in the new budget at Tuesday’s conference, though he declined to specify the exact amount.
“Anytime we have budget negotiations coming up, we will set aside a sum of money within our budget — although we don’t disclose what that amount is publicly, as to not disclose our hand — but we do set aside a sum that we feel comfortable with,” he said. “That is in the budget. We are now in negotiations based on that number.”
Some union reps, including Gonzalez of CFPEA, are also staying optimistic for now.
“We’re not doom and gloom,” he said. “We still have hope that we can work things out because all of us agree that it’s not always about money.
“There’s a lot of things that can be done to work out agreements that don’t necessarily include money,” he added, “but they do include something that makes it a better work-life balance.”
Which city worker union contracts are expiring this month?
The city union contracts expiring this month include:
- International Union of Operating Engineers, Stationary Engineers, Local 39, representing some blue-collar workers like mechanics and custodians
- Fresno City Employees Association, representing white-collar, non-managerial staff like code enforcement officers and customer service clerks
- Fresno Police Officers Association, representing both management and non-management employees of the Fresno Police Department
- Fresno City Firefighters Association, representing both management and non-management employees of the Fresno Fire Department
- Amalgamated Transit Union, representing city bus drivers
- International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 100, representing other blue-collar workers like electricians and air conditioning mechanics
- City of Fresno Professional Employees Association, representing white-collar supervisors like transit supervisors and accountants
- City of Fresno Management Employees Association, representing management positions like the city’s ADA Coordinator and Facilities Manager
- Fresno Airport Public Safety Officers Association, representing the city airport’s public safety officers and supervisors
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