A “game changer” of a contract for Somerville city workers was funded Thursday by the City Council, with $1.5 million going to pay for average raises of up to 17 percent and better paid family and medical leave benefits.
“This is not your usual contract,” mayor Katjana Ballantyne went on to tell councilors in requesting the appropriation, noting it was based on a first-ever wage compensation study done with the city union that “allowed us to account not just for inflation and the market rate paid to certain professions, but to evaluate wage discrepancies due to bias and to correct them.”
The contract, in the works since 2021, is for the Somerville Municipal Employees Union’s Unit B, the city’s largest, with employees in some two dozen departments that include Public Works, Water and Sewer, libraries, the City Clerk’s Office and Parking and Inspectional Services. It was signed by the mayor and union leadership Jan. 6 and ratified by the union Jan. 8 in what union president Ed Halloran called an “overwhelming but not unanimous” vote among 160 members, out of around 200 total.
Halloran said at the time that “this may be the best contract the members of this union have ever received” in his 32 years with the organization.
The three-year term of the contract goes back to 2023, increasing all Unit B members’ wages 6 percent in the first two years and boosting them on average by 17 percent in year three. All wages for existing employees get a market adjustment increase of an average 14 percent. The contract also provides more vacation and leave benefits.
It even triples a stipend for employees who drive personal vehicles regularly on city business and increases mileage reimbursement rates for others; modernizes payroll with direct deposit and paperless pay stubs; and ups an annual clothing allowance by $150.
The wage study looked at 90 positions and what similar workers were making in a dozen surrounding cities and towns to see where Somerville should be on the pay scale. “Somerville will not stand for unequal pay for equal work,” Ballantyne said. “I’ve said all our workers are valued, that they all must be fairly compensated, and I meant it.”
“We rolled up our sleeves, we did a lot of research to be sure we got it right, and then we got to work with our union leadership to create a contract that went well beyond the usual incremental improvements, beyond adjusting for increases to cost of living,” Ballantyne said. “We provided a targeted wage adjustment position by position to recalibrate how Unit B members are compensated and to ensure they are compensated equitably based upon the work they are, in fact, performing.”
The study and resulting contract is intended to make up for bias in gender, class and educational attainment, Ballantyne said, calling the contract “an act of solidarity.”
“For me, equity is not a buzzword. It is the foundation of everything we do. This contract strengthens that foundation in a time when equity is under threat,” Ballantyne said. “This is Somerville holding to what is right and what is fair.”
Seeing the results
Halloran told councilors on Thursday that he was already seeing the effects of the contract reverse the city’s reliance on outside contractors. The trend started as far back a 2008 financial crisis that brought years of layoffs and slowed wage increases for municipal employees.
“We’re looking at retention and getting people into jobs, and we’re seeing that happen right now. People are just coming in the door. We got a gardener, we got some new people coming in over the DPW,” Halloran said. “It’s really exciting for us to get to get new people and new members.”
Councilors seemed excited to pass the appropriation, Halloran said.
“I like to see you guys smiling, because it’s really important considering what’s going on in the country right now,” Halloran said.
In passing the appropriation unanimously, the council went on to lock it in by taking a formal vote of reconsideration – to which every member voted “no.”
The work is not done: The contract for supervisory and inspection workers in the union’s A and D units are still being negotiated – “we’re ready to get to work on those contracts as soon as this one is finalized,” Ballantyne said – and nonunion workers and other unions also await.
This post was updated Feb. 14, 2025, to clarify a quote by Ed Halloran and add a sense of how the union ratification vote went.
A stronger
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