Negotiations Public Updates:

The County of Sonoma and representatives of SEIU Local 1021 met for their 13th bargaining session on February 8, 2023. During this session, both parties reached a number of tentative agreements on non-economic issues, provided counter proposals, and engaged in discussions around pending matters.

The County’s proposals are designed to address recruitment and retention issues and inflationary pressures affecting the workforce, while maintaining fiscal sustainability as called for in the County’s compensation philosophy. The County’s economic package includes the following:

• Increases to compensation for extra-help employees and positions identified as being under-the-market average.
• A 12.5 percent wage increase over three years.
• Annual increases to medical insurance contributions to offset projected medical plan increases over the term of the labor agreement.
• A higher rate of bilingual pay.
• Conversion of a cash allowance into salary to increase the base hourly rate of pay for extra-help and full-time employees.

The County’s economic package is competitive with recent labor agreements reached by neighboring counties including Marin, Contra Costa and Solano counties. Overall, we believe this package recognizes the importance of employee recruitment and retention by providing annual COLA increases and by increasing hourly rates if a specific job class is found to be compensated under the average market. This package also aligns with the County’s obligation to taxpayers and the community to demonstrate fiscal responsibility.

We are looking forward to continuing talks with our labor partners and working toward our mutual goals. The Board is confident this effort will result in a fair-market competitive and fiscally sustainable agreement with the unions that represent our employees.

In the meantime, the County is committed to maintaining good communications and as much transparency to the public concerning labor negotiations progress, as allowed by law.  To that end, staff will regularly post negotiation updates on this as well as other pages dedicated to updates on negotiations with specific labor units.