Photograph by Skye Dunlap

SEA protesters gathered near Sunnyvale City Hall last Monday night to demand parity with neighboring cities.




Taking it to the streets

Municipal workers say wage comparison puts local apples next to East Bay oranges

By Sam Scott

As night fell, and the scores of homemade signs became difficult to read, the sentiment of the crowd holding them remained clear. The more than 100 city workers represented by the Service Employees of America union, picketing before last Tuesday's council meeting, are not happy with the city of Sunnyvale's contract offer.

The peaceful protest reached its peak around 6 p.m. Fueled by the presence of a TV camera, the SEA workers broke into short chants, waved their signs, and encouraged drivers at the intersection of El Camino Real and Mathilda Avenue to honk.

"We're just trying to show that we have unity and let everyone know we're underpaid," Joe Avila, a board member of the union, says.

City Manager Robert LaSala took a dim view of the protest, saying, "It is disappointing that the employee association has tried to take the negotiations away from the bargaining table."

The principal sticking point in the union's stalled year-long negotiation with the city is the list of cities Sunnyvale wants to use as a comparison to determine what's a fair wage.

LaSala is proposing a contract that would immediately raise salaries to an average calculated from a 10-city list. The list includes neighbors Palo Alto and Santa Clara, in addition to further-flung municipalities like Richmond and Hayward. By the contract's final year, workers would earn 1.75 percent more than the average (which would move as the other city's salaries moved).

LaSala, who concedes that Sunnyvale workers are underpaid, says this deal would provide an average eight percent boost to workers' pay.

"Even in this economy that's a pretty respectable increase," LaSala says.

Union members, some of whom commute from as far away as Los Banos and Newman, don't see it so rosily. They specifically object to the inclusion of lower-paying East Bay cities in the average, feeling those cities are irrelevant to Sunnyvale and are included only to weigh down the result.

"When you go from San Francisco to San Jose, you go from one nice town to another nice town," says Frank Bernal, who has worked 30-years for the city. "In the East Bay, it's not that way. Towns don't look as good as in the west. Why should we be compared to them?"

Union members want cities like San Leandro and Richmond removed from the list.

"We're asking the city to base our salaries on the surrounding cities," said Ron Anima, holding a sign that reads "Excellent Work Deserves Excellent Pay."

LaSala says including East Bay cities in the average is valid because Sunnyvale competes in the same job market with them. He also says that the union agreed to the list in past negotiations.

Ben Gikis, union president, says the city manager is being inconsistent since his own salary is derived from an average of the top 20 similarly sized cities in the state.

"I guess it doesn't work both ways," Gikis says.

David Nieto, human resources director, says there is no parallel between the city manager's situation and that of the union.

"It doesn't make sense to try to take the local market from where we get most of the people and try to make some link to the highest executive in the city who came clear across the country to work here. They're two totally different markets, totally different types of jobs."

At the root of the problem is a differing view of the city's economic health.

"We think they can afford [a bigger raise] big-time. We hired an accounting firm to go over city finances. The preliminary evaluation is that the city has plenty of money," Gikis says.

LaSala says that the money they have is earmarked for future costs like the $11 million senior center.

"The city reserves are committed. It's just like Social Security. It looks like it has excess funds today but they are committed to future expenses," he says."

According to Mary Bradley, the director of finance, the current offer already stretches the city.

"Our proposal is more than we have in the budget," she says

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