Search: Home Spotlight, 2020

More than a year ago, staff workers at California College of the Arts overwhelmingly voted to form a union. These roughly 150 workers provide a wide range of student services at the school, from clerical and IT work to library staffers and artists in the school’s studios. Since their ratification vote in April of 2019, these staffers have worked to bargain their first contract with CCA administration.

After months of negotiating in the midst of a global pandemic, SEIU 1021 members at the City of Berkeley have reached a tentative agreement (TA) with City management. Like so many SEIU 1021 members have experienced since the COVID-19 outbreak began, workers in Berkeley were fighting to protect vital City services, ensure workplace safety, and safeguard jobs.

I work in a different type of emergency room—a mental health emergency room. It’s become more real in the last month or so. Everyone is stressed out working during this crisis. I don’t talk about it much, but it’s dangerous working in an acute psychiatric facility.

On Juneteenth, over 38,000 union dockyard workers shut down ports across the Pacific Coast ports in protest of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others. SEIU 1021 members were proud to participate in one the largest actions seen so far in solidarity with the nationwide protests against police brutality. 

Dear Mayor Schaaf, Council Member Thao, and Council Member Kaplan: I am a resident of District 4 and a City of Oakland employee. I am writing to you as a concerned Oakland resident. For the past 13 years, I have had the honor of working for the Oakland Public Library.

In the wake of the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbrey, SEIU 1021 members hosted a powerful Racial Justice Roundtable discussion on June 9. This deeply personal conversation was intended to create space for us to process, provide support, and discuss what’s happening in our communities and what we can do in this moment.

You can watch a full recording of the event on the SEIU 1021 Facebook Page or on Vimeo.

The recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbrey are painful reminders of why our union committed in 2016 to becoming an antiracist organization and tackling anti-Black racism. There can be no justice without racial justice.

As Oakland’s strength is being tested by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Libby Schaaf has attacked city workers. First, she issued pre-emptive layoff notices to a thousand so-called “temporary, part-time” workers, many of whom have worked for Oakland for years. Then, she proposed weeks of furlough days and postponing wage increases. At the same time, she was busy appointing her cronies to high-paid positions in the City Administrator’s office.

As the impending economic impact the COVID-19 outbreak will have on our communities comes into focus, we have seen many employers already calling for cuts to services and staff. We know there are difficult times ahead, but many of our communities have not yet fully recovered from the last recession. Cutting services further and not safeguarding against privatization would be devastating for millions, including SEIU 1021 members.