By KATHERINE PETERSEN
About 200 members of the Sunnyvale Employees' Association showed up at the July 16 council meeting to give support to the group's negotiating team, which is still working on a contract with the city. Members of the association, who repair computers, fix roads and perform other duties for the city, have been working without a contract since June 30, said Gail Price, who works in the city's planning division.
SEA has 350 dues-paying members, but it represents more than 450 workers.
The salaries of SEA members range from 5 percent to 19 percent lower than those in neighboring Silicon Valley cities, Price said.
"Without fair and appropriate pay, morale suffers and the city will have difficulty in retaining and recruiting employees. This will affect service delivery," she said.
Productivity has increased by 44 percent and cost efficiency by 38 percent in non-inflated real dollars since 1985, Price said.
"We are staffed at about 40 percent less than cities of comparable size. Our pay is dramatically below the average of the benchmark cities for our [contract]," she said.
David Nieto, the city's human resources director, would not comment on SEA's salary claims.
"Both the city and SEA are working very hard and in a collaborative way to reach a fair and equitable agreement," he said.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, July 24, 1996.
©1996 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.