While the San Jose City Council has approved new contract agreements with several public sector unions, a protracted labor dispute that has brought the city government dangerously close to a major worker strike will continue, after one bargaining group’s members rejected the deal.
Councilmembers on Tuesday unanimously approved updated three-year contracts that will cover roughly 4,000 city workers represented by IFPTE Local 21 and MEF-AFSCME Local 101. For these groups, the approval marks an end to months of tense bargaining talks that pitted workers against city leaders over a range of issues, including wages and worker protections from artificial intelligence displacement risks.
But the membership of one bargaining group — the Association of Maintenance Supervisory Personnel (AMSP), one of three IFPTE Local 21 chapters involved in the talks — rejected the deal, leaving it unclear where contract talks will head next…