Oakland council’s bid to halt city strike goes nowhere

Striking civilian labor unions which represent approximately 2,700 employees at Frank Ogawa Plaza on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017 in Oakland, CA. Striking civilian labor unions which represent approximately 2,700 employees at Frank Ogawa Plaza on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017 in Oakland, CA. Photo: Paul Kuroda, Special To The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Kuroda, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Oakland council’s bid to halt city strike goes nowhere 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Oakland city workers will strike for a third day Thursday after the City Council was unable to agree on a deal to get them back to work.

The council planned to try again Thursday to arrive at a plan that could halt the strike by nearly 3,000 workers and lead to a resumption of talks with union negotiators. Until that happens, libraries, day care centers, recreation spots and other nonemergency city services will remain closed, as employees picket City Hall to push for better pay raises and working conditions and other demands. Police, fire and 911 services will stay open and staffed.

The strike started Tuesday at 7 a.m., with workers picketing through the evening outside a downtown campaign fundraiser by Mayor Libby Schaaf, who has called the strike “unlawful.”

The picket swelled Wednesday afternoon, taking over 14th Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland outside City Hall, as council members discussed labor negotiations in closed session.

The strike brought to a standstill street cleaning, senior centers, the hauling away of illegal dumping, fire and building inspections, parking citations, after-school programs, and the filing of non-emergency crime and traffic reports.

No remedies or decisions came out of a 2½-hour City Council meeting Wednesday afternoon. The council will meet again Thursday afternoon.

“All I can do is apologize,” Councilman Larry Reid said to families affected by the strike. “This is all part of labor negotiations. And so hopefully, tomorrow, we’ll get the issue resolved.”

Other council members declined to comment. All appeared frustrated as they hurried out of City Hall.

“It’s disappointing that families have been impacted for what will be right now three days,” Schaaf said. “But it would be more disappointing, more horrific, if families were permanently damaged because we had to permanently reduce city services as well as potentially lay off city workers.”

The mayor was referring to a new memo from the city’s financial analysts, who said the demand by unions on a two-year deal — with a 4 percent wage bump each year — would create a deficit of nearly $20 million and require a staff reduction equivalent to 150 full-time employees. The union’s own analysis, however, points out that Oakland’s expected revenues in recent years have been under-forecast, while its expenditures have been over-projected.

The city has offered the union a 4 percent bump in the first year, retroactive to July 1, but increases after that would be tied to the city’s revenue growth under its proposal.

“The city, as long as I’ve been here, they’ve always said they’re broke,” said Felipe Cuevas, a heavy-equipment mechanic for the Public Works Department and chapter president of Service Employees International Union Local 1021. “That’s a given. Sometimes they are, sometimes they’re not.”

The threat of layoffs in exchange for salary increases was “offensive intimidation,” said Rob Szykowny, the chief negotiator for SEIU Local 1021. In his bargaining unit alone, Szykowny said, the city has about 300 vacant positions that are budgeted as if they were filled. And new revenue streams from things like cannabis taxes are also unaccounted for in the city’s projections, he said.

The city countered that over-reliance on turbulent revenue gains or approving only the agreed-upon one-year deal — as the union has requested — could hurt Oakland’s credit rating.

SEIU Local 1021 — the city’s largest union — called for the strike after Oakland’s negotiators rejected the one-year compromise or bringing in former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, as an informal mediator. Schaaf said he wouldn’t have been a neutral party, but agreed to have a mediator whom both sides approve.

Another union, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21, approved a solidarity strike. Members of other unions, including the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245, were refusing to cross the picket line.

“We had thought we’d be back at work tomorrow, so we’re disappointed the council couldn’t get it done,” Szykowny said. “We have confidence in the rational, forward-thinking folks on City Council to pass a deal to bring everyone back to work.”

Kimberly Veklerov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kveklerov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kveklerov