This morning, Mayor Todd Gloria joined AFSCME President Lee Saunders and members of UDW/AFSCME Local 3930 and AFSCME District Council 36 for a press conference on the urgent need to fill public service vacancies. Speakers discussed the importance of attracting dedicated people to fill these good union jobs.
“To San Diegans, I’m here to say that I’m putting out a call. I’m here to recruit you to work in public service, an honorable profession, that could use a few more good people. If you raise your hand to come work for the City of San Diego, not only will get the daily opportunity to make your community a better place to live, but you will be rewarded with a good union job with fair pay, great benefits, and job and retirement security,” said Mayor Gloria.
AFSCME President Lee Saunders noted that there are 970,000 job openings in state and local governments across the US. This is the highest number ever recorded since the data started being collected over two decades ago.
The press conference followed a private listening session, where AFSCME members discussed strategies with city elected officials on how to improve recruitment and retain qualified workers in California public services.
“We need passionate, caring people in these positions. And as our city’s senior population grows, we need home care workers now more than ever. We need talented people who care about their communities to step in and fill these roles, which is why we’re engaging our elected leaders and community allies in these important conversations. We’re asking the tough questions, like how can we increase recruitment and retention in these vital industries–and working together come up with solutions,” said UDW Executive Director Doug Moore in the press conference.
From nursing to sanitation to child care and home care, chronic short staffing undermines the effective delivery of public services that Californians across the state rely on. That’s why AFSCME launched the Staff the Front Lines initiative this year, to partner with elected officials on recruiting and retaining the essential workers who keep our communities running. The Staff the Front Lines bus tour will hold recruitment events in more than 20 cities across the country this summer.
AFSCME has 1.4 million members nationwide.
Local AFSCME 127 President Tim Douglass said, “Like with all workplaces, we lost a lot of workers during the pandemic. Mayor Gloria understood that to keep delivering the quality public services our communities depend on, we needed to Staff the Front Lines. Together, we worked on a historic new contract that includes a 21% salary increase over the next three years, with an additional 10% salary increase for the majority of our union’s membership. This historic pay raise comes on top of the already incredible benefits that come with having a good union job. We are proud to say that we have already reached full staffing in some department job classifications. But there are still a lot more of these jobs available.”
