Virginia Beach workers picket, council confers as collective bargaining vote looms

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY) – The Virginia Beach City Workers Union came together Tuesday night to call on city leaders to pass a resolution in support of collective bargaining for public workers in the city.

They picketed outside of Virginia Beach City Hall before a meeting of city council, who are expected to vote on the matter on April 30.

The union cited a recently conducted poll of 576 random voters across Virginia Beach’s 10 districts that showed voters in Virginia Beach support collective bargaining for city employees, with 60.6% in favor to 20.3% against. The poll was funded by the Virginia Beach Police Benevolent Association and Virginia Beach Professional Fire & EMS.

“With collective bargaining we can level the playing field and have a voice. City workers have never had a voice,” added Virginia Beach City Workers Union Chair Terry Green. “The majority is with us.”

VB City Council to vote on collective bargaining

If approved, city workers would be able to negotiate through a union for things like better pay and working conditions. It comes as the city’s seen staffing issues across its departments, particularly in fire/EMS.

Advocates say collective bargaining is needed to help increase retention, give workers a seat at the table and bring Virginia Beach’s pay back to among the highest in the region. Critics, though, say they’re concerned about the costs leading to higher taxes and potential layoffs for workers in the future.

Virginia Beach City Council discussed the matter for over an hour Tuesday at their work session. Some members seem to have made up their mind, while others say they’re still looking through the data and pros and cons.

The video above is from Tuesday’s Virginia Beach City Council work session. They discussed the subject of collective bargaining for more than an hour. A vote on the matter is scheduled for April 30.

“I’m concerned that we’re going to go so far that we can’t bring it back in,” said Vice Mayor Rosemary Wilson, who’s been critical of collective bargaining. “I’d rather see us take baby steps,”

Wilson also said on Tuesday that she spoke to Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander, whose city rejected collective bargaining in 2023 in favor of the “meet and confer” negotiation method that Virginia Beach uses, and that he told her he had been concerned that collective bargaining “could bankrupt [Norfolk.]”

“That’s kind of a scary thought. Especially at a time we’ve got so many needs in this city. We’re looking at how to save some money so we can get roads built, our schools done, flooding projects …”

City Councilmember David Hutcheson, a former city fire chief, spoke in favor of collective bargaining. He says savings from the retention of employees who’d otherwise leaving could pay for the roughly $1 million estimated annual cost for implementing collective bargaining.

He believes meeting every three to five years for a contract with workers would also lead to less work for the city, and “it’s normally not some outrageous amount of money” when new contracts are finalized.

“We’ve talked about the step plan [that the city implemented a few years ago] … and how it was $30 million one time. That’s because we were behind.”

Councilman Chris Taylor said he still believes there hasn’t been enough public input on collective bargaining before a vote and said he wants clearer data. He likened differing information received on firefighter pay to comparing “apples and kiwis.”

“There is disparity amongst the workforce … go talk to a public utilities worker,” Taylor added. “Find out if they’re happy working here. The answer I get 8 out of 10 times is ‘yes I’m happy but I’d like to get paid more. Yes the step plan was good — but.'”

Councilwoman Amelia Ross-Hammond said she was still reviewing the pros and cons of the matter and said she wants to make sure the city has some protections if it approves collective bargaining.

Meanwhile Councilwoman Sabrina Wooten said she’s been supportive of collective bargaining and said it’s important to recognize city workers.

“When I think about collective bargaining to make sure I’m considering they do the work,” Wooten said.

She also suggested the city get more input from Portsmouth, which became the first in Hampton Roads to approve collective bargaining.

Councilwoman Rosemary Wilson added “we have to make certain that if we do go forward we’ve got it right. Because I think once we go forward with this there’s no going back.”

Check with WAVY.com for more updates.

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