Pre-dawn set­tlement staves off Sunnyvale strike

An early morning tentative agreement reached Monday between officials with a Sunnyvale employee union and the city averted a work stoppage of about 450 employees, union and city officials said.

Sunnyvale Mayor Glenn Hendricks said:

“This is very good news for our residents.”

The Sunnyvale Employees Association and the city signed the agreement at about 3 a.m. at the home of Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who intervened in the negotiations for the first time and facilitated the discussion.

Union spokesman Tom Saggau, who was at the negotiations, said:

“Both sides are very appreciative of what the supervisor did.”

said Details of the agreement won’t be available to the public until union officials share them with their members. That’s expected to happen today, according to Saggau.

Before the agreement takes effect, union members must vote on it, which probably won’t happen until May 8 because the union contract requires a waiting period of five days before a vote is taken.

The City Council must also vote to ratify the agreement. Hendricks expects that to happen May 9.

“I am hopeful” that the council will approve the agreement, Hendricks said.

Union officials were asking for a 14 percent raise but were open to other offers if they included an ongoing raise component. Employees haven’t received a raise in more than five years.

The agreement started unfolding Sunday morning when Saggau got a call from Chavez, who said City Manager Deanna Santana got in touch with her and asked whether she could help get the two sides back to the table.

Officials with the union and city scheduled a meeting for about 8 p.m. at the supervisor’s house, where they sat in the living room.

Saggau said the supervisor’s house was a safe environment where both sides could tone down the rhetoric.

Following frequent caucuses and walks around the block, “we got a breakthrough,” Saggau said.

The strike actually started at 12:01 a.m. but Hendricks didn’t believe any city services were impacted this morning since the two sides were in negotiations.