Council staff union seeking wage deal for new members

Unionized City Council employees rallied on the steps of City Hall Tuesday to call on Council leadership to finalize a contract agreement covering 96 employees whose wage rates have yet to be settled.

Dozens of City Council employees in the body's central staff accreted into the Association of Legislative Employees shortly the union reached its first-ever contract agreement with the City Council in early 2024, and while the workers are covered by the non-economic portions of the original contract, their salary minimums and maximums have yet to be finalized.  

Brook Frye, a senior data scientist on the ALE's bargaining committee, said a wage boost for her and her colleagues in the four titles who didn't get a raise in the initial contract is a long time coming. She argued that because her direct supervisors received a 20 percent wage boost, the 96 union members should receive an "equitable" bump.  

"We've just never really had a system that sets accountability and because of that we're falling really behind in wages compared to comparable titles that work for the mayor and our supervisors," she said. "It's a design flaw that has allowed us to fall really far behind our supervisors." 

Frye's salary is around $103,000 a year, nearly double what the lowest-paid Council employees make, but, Frye said, it's not a competitive salary for someone who's been in her role for over eight years. Frye wouldn't say exactly what salary members are hoping to win in bargaining, but said she and her colleagues are "severely underpaid."

Matt Molloy, president of the ALE, also declined to provide the exact wage goals for the union but reiterated that the union is pushing for a "significant" wage increase. He added that the union has already come down from its initial wage proposals.

"The union made some significant movement in our demands to try to meet management's side where they're at, and the reason we're calling this rally is we think it's time to wrap it up," Molloy said. "We don't want to see this dragged out anymore."  

City Council staff looking to reach a contract with Council management point to a recent raise awarded to their direct supervisors as justification for their own pay increase.

Courtesy Association of Legislative Employees

ALE's original contact, settled under the tenure of former City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, immediately increased the salaries of the lowest-paid employees from $30,000 to $50,000. The six-year deal included pattern-aligned 3 percent raises for the first five years of the contract and 3.15 percent in the final year. 

The contract expires in 2027 and includes long-sought “just cause” protections that prevents most from being arbitrarily fired and establishes a formal grievance procedure – aspects of the contract that the 96 employees are covered by.  

Staffers first announced they were unionizing in 2019 and received voluntary recognition in August 2021. Negotiations for their initial contract took two years, and union members rallied outside City Hall repeatedly throughout the process.  

A spokesperson for City Council Speaker Julie Menin did not provide a comment on the ongoing bargaining.