Union employees who have not received a raise from the City of Sunnyvale for over five years are set to strike Monday, which is also International Workers’ Day, officials from the Sunnyvale Employees Association announced Friday morning.
Critical public health and safety workers, including police, fire crews, paramedics, dispatchers and garbage collectors will remain on duty through the strike.
A number of other striking employees, including road service crews, will be on standby in case of emergency, according to union and city officials.
The library, community center and senior center will be limited to weekend-level staffing, city officials said.
The decision came Thursday after the union’s negotiating team, including an attorney and SEA president John Simontacchi, turned down the city’s final offer in a meeting with human resources director Teri Silva and Sunnyvale’s outside legal counsel, Charles Sakai.
Union leaders, who are asking for a 14 percent raise but are open to new offers if they include an ongoing raise component, rejected that offer and scheduled the strike, which had been authorized by voting union members two days prior.
At that meeting Tuesday evening, 355 of the 361 members present voted to authorize the strike, according to lobbyist Dustin DeRollo, who is contracting with SEA.
About 423 of those members have voting privileges under union rules, DeRollo said.
Two other city employee unions, the Sunnyvale Public Safety Officers Association and the Sunnyvale Managers Association, sent letters in support of SEA receiving a fair contract to Sunnyvale Mayor Glenn Hendricks and City Council earlier this month.
Thus far, the city has refused to offer that.” SEA members average more than $100,000 a year, but have not received the cost of living raises that the city has budgeted for since 2015 and is now refusing to pay.