In total, expiring labor agreements cover more than half the state’s workers. Five other units also have contracts that are up this summer and some are also seeking raises. Local 1000 covers nine of the state’s 21 worker bargaining units. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers seek to close a $31.5 billion hole in the budget. Theirs are not the only labor demands the state has to contend with as Gov. Their current contracts expire at the end of June. Rodriguez is active in Local 1000, which represents nearly 100,000 state government employees, from administrative staff to janitors to health care workers. The union has called for a 30% raise over the next three years and the full cost of health premiums covered. That sentiment undergirds the contract talks this year for the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, the largest union representing California state government workers. “I want the stability I had before, where I don’t have to worry about (living) paycheck to paycheck,” said Rodriguez. Halfway through each month, she takes stock of their expenses and budgets to ensure she can afford gas for her 30-mile daily commute. The $2,100 monthly rent she pays for the home she and her teenage daughter share eats up half her earnings at the DMV in San Luis Obispo. Now, at 52, she’s feeling less financially stable. But she liked the other benefits of state work: the health care coverage, the flexibility of transferring departments when her family moved and the job security when she went on maternity leave. Over the years she thought about looking for work at private companies to make more money, especially after she had a child. When Tammy Rodriguez landed a job with the California Department of Motor Vehicles 27 years ago, she felt like she had “struck gold.” It was her first job, she said, and she felt secure knowing she was earning not just a salary, but a pension for later in life. State workers say their lower than private sector salaries were offset by pensions, better benefits, job security.
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