Today, the San Jose City Council voted to move forward with a plan to cover City employees under the landmark Opportunity to Work measure. The first-of-its-kind initiative, which passed with overwhelming support from San Jose voters in November of 2016, provides part-time workers the opportunity to work additional hours before their employers can hire more part-time staff.
By a vote of 9 to 2, with Council Member Don Rocha leading the way, the Council agreed to study the most effective way to apply the Opportunity to Work rules to its own workforce. With today’s decision, the Council has taken an important step towards ensuring that the jobs the City creates using public money meet basic standards of fairness.
In addition to Council Member Rocha, those who voted to expand Opportunity to Work were Mayor Sam Liccardo, Vice Mayor Magdalena Carrasco, and Council Members Sergio Jimenez, Lan Diep, Raul Peralez, Chappie Jones, Tam Nguyen, and Sylvia Arenas. Members who voted against adopting the Opportunity to Work standards were Johnny Khamis and Dev Davis.
The Opportunity to Work legislation, which went into effect in early March of this year, currently requires medium to large employers in San Jose to offer available work hours to current, part-time, qualified employees before hiring any new staff. Until today, the City of San Jose had not moved to give its own employees the same protection.
Do you have a news tip you would like to share? Would you like to contribute to The Left Hook? Email us at LeftHookBlog@gmail.com
No Comments