Today, the San Jose City Council voted to develop 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 workers.
By a vote of 9 to 2, the Council agreed to study the most effective way to apply the Opportunity to Work rules to its own workforce.
The Opportunity to Work legislation, which went into effect in early March of this year, requires medium to large employers in San Jose to offer available work hours to current, part-time, qualified employees before hiring any new staff. Right now, City of San Jose employees do not have the same protections.
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.
