With strong turnout, SEIU 1021 members in the San Francisco Citywide (“Miscellaneous”) bargaining unit voted by 91% to ratify the new three-year agreement won through a fierce contract campaign this year.

Members voted throughout the month of May, and votes were counted at the San Francisco union hall on May 30.

With the City’s projected budget deficit of almost $800 million in the next two years and a lot of the federal covid stimulus money gone, it was a difficult time to be negotiating. But thanks to the unity of the membership, and in particular their willingness to show up at the kickoff on January 17 at City Hall, strike school, the rally at SFGH, the rally at 49 SVN, the rally at HSA, and the rally at the Main Library, they were able to apply the pressure needed to win a strong 3-year contract with no takeaways that helps keep up with inflation while addressing their concerns around contracting out and staffing up.

“From the beginning of negotiations, our members have been clear that the top priority is to be able to provide the quality public services San Francisco needs,” said Kristin Hardy, SEIU 1021 SF regional vice president.

“We’re proud to have won a $25 minimum wage for SF city workers, which will immediately help bring over 1000 of the City’s lowest-paid employees out of poverty.

“While wages are important to be able to retain and recruit talent in a tight labor market in a city as expensive as San Francisco, they are far from the only thing that matters.

“The City has been wasting billions of dollars contracting out public services to unaccountable corporations and nonprofit organizations with poor outcomes. We want public services to stay public and to be accountable to SF residents. We won new protections against contracting out in this agreement that we believe can start to disrupt this disturbing pattern of throwing taxpayer dollars to outside companies with little to no oversight. We believe the agreement will help us protect and improve the public services SF needs as it rebuilds post-pandemic.”

Highlights of the agreement include a 13% cost-of-living adjustment over the three-year life of the contract, with additional equity adjustments for a number of hard-to-fill and/or underpaid classifications and a guaranteed $25/hour minimum wage for all city workers; protections against new contracting out; and a process for converting temporary as-needed employees to permanent employees.

The final step is adoption by the Board of Supervisors through the budget process.