Jewish Federation Workers Continue to Fight for a Fair Contract, Hold Button Day Action

On December 6, union members across the Jewish Federation, including the Council for Jewish Elderly (CJE), Jewish Community Center (JCC), Jewish United Fund (JUF), and Jewish Child & Family Services (JCFS), stood together for a fair contract by wearing their SEIU Local 73 buttons to work.

This display of unity and power helped set the tone as the Jewish Federation bargaining committee presented their remaining economic proposals to management on December 7. The bargaining committee have now presented proposals on the following:

• Fair pay increases for all, including additional increases for those who are lowest paid 
• Expanding paid parental leave to 12 fully paid weeks
• Lowering healthcare costs, especially for the plus one and family plans
• Adding paid holidays, including Juneteenth and Indigenous People’s Day
• A monthly car stipend for those required to own a vehicle to do their jobs
• Improving the comp/flex time policy
• Expanding paid personal and sick time and adding additional time for bereavement leave, covid leave, and prenatal doctors’ visits
• Extra pay for performing additional duties, including a bonus for those who supervise interns and for bilingual staff who use a second language in their job
• Expanding paid personal time to all employees covered by the union contract, including part-timers
• Increasing the employer matching program for retirement contributions 
• and more! 

Workers are still waiting on the majority of management’s responses to these proposals, and expect to receive more responses this week. While the bargaining committee has shared many examples of how these proposals would contribute to a more sustainable, family-friendly workplace that is more able to retain its staff and provide for the community, the feedback heard from management so far is that the bargaining team is “unreasonable” for proposing these changes on behalf of union members, and suggesting that they would need to close programs and cut jobs if management agreed to our proposals. 

Jewish Federation workers are not falling for these scare tactics, however. As union members, they continue to stay strong and advocate for the positive changes needed throughout all Jewish Federation agencies.