San Francisco courtroom clerks reach agreement over staffing, training issues
San Francisco Superior Court clerks on strike Oct. 24, 2024. (Photo from the Service Employees International Union Local 1021’s Jan. 13 press release)
Last week, clerks for the San Francisco Superior Court agreed to a one-year contract, effecting ending the possibility for more strikes.
On Jan. 9, the clerks voted by an 84% supermajority to ratify a tentative agreement reached with court management in December, Service Employees International Union Local 1021 announced Monday. The union, which represents the clerks, said the new contract includes improvements to staffing and training that the workers demanded over several months of negotiations.
The clerks had several rallies and staged a one-day strike after their contract expired Sept. 30, Courthouse News Service reports. More than 99% of clerks voted to authorize the strike, and nearly 200 employees from the civil and criminal divisions participated.
Clerks said at the time there weren’t enough of them to properly staff courtrooms, according to previous reporting by Courthouse News Service. They also said their employers routinely overworked them and expected them to handle matters outside their expertise without providing them with proper training.
The clerks’ new contract mandates that court managers provide “ongoing, quality training,” as well as training manuals to all employees by May 1, according to SEIU Local 1021. It requires that employees get 60 days’ notice before new technology is introduced and the opportunity to negotiate its impact on their workplace.
The new contract also ends the practice of allowing positions to remain vacant when clerks are promoted or moved to other roles, the union said.
“We are confident that the language won in this contract will ensure a more balanced and fair workplace,” said Kimberly Septien, chapter president of the SEIU Local 1021 San Francisco Superior Court, in the press release. “With the language in place, we can now begin the work to address the issues that have long affected our members.”
SEIU Local 1021 added that state funding changes still are needed to hire more staff to eliminate backlogs, such as the one that led to the dismissal of 70 misdemeanor cases in August.
The San Francisco Superior Court did not provide a comment to Courthouse News Service.
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