Palo Alto gets contract valentine

After meeting since the workers organized in November, bargaining teams from the city and the Service Employees International Union sat down for five hours Monday and made some progress in contract negotiations.

The workers, who range in age from college students to seniors, are pushing for paid vacation and health care benefits. They've submitted a proposal detailing those demands, but Palo Alto's response largely ignored those requests, workers said.


"What the city submitted was just boilerplate stuff found in any contract. But it's a good start," said Annie Bunten, a member of the employee bargaining team. Bunten's a full-time student at Foothill College and manager at Rinconada Pool on Embarcadero Road.

While the city's proposal dealt with issues such as how employees are to file grievances, it did not address the union's main concerns -- healthcare and vacation time, Bunten said.

The union has been asking for those benefits on a scale that is proportionate to what full-time employees receive, but so far, Palo Alto has been reluctant to assume any new costs.



"Obviously, facing a $5.2 million budget deficit, we are very concerned about that," said Emily Harrison, Palo Alto's assistant city manager.

That deficit might present a problem in coming months for SEIU, which represents both the city's hourly workers and their full-time counterparts. A clause in the full-time employee's contract mandates that the city lay off all hourly staff before cutting any full-time positions, Harrison said.

The City Council came to terms with the inevitability of staff reductions at a recent budget study session, and over the next few months, the city manager's office will be looking at every department to find places to cut.



Harrison said Palo Alto hopes to wrap up negotiations before budget discussions begin in earnest this April.

"There's a sense of urgency there," Harrison said.

But union officials say they just haven't seen much indication of that urgency.



Email: jwein [at] examiner.com