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The city workers' union drive

Updated October 24, 2026

What's happening

About 200 to 220 non-union Somerville city staff are trying to organize as Somerville Workers United, affiliated with AFSCME Council 93, and Mayor Jake Wilson has not voluntarily recognized them. The City Council unanimously asked him to on May 28, six days after layoffs that hit the proposed bargaining unit harder than anything else in city government (digest).

Wilson's public reason for not recognizing the union is that two unions have competing petitions before the state Department of Labor Relations covering some of the same positions. He says that obliges the city to stay neutral until the DLR decides who represents whom (Working Mass / Boston DSA). No DLR ruling has been reported since, and no recognition item appeared on the Council's Sept. 10, Sept. 24 or Oct. 8 agendas (Sept. 24 agenda).

Meanwhile the unionized workforce keeps getting contracts. On Oct. 23 the city announced it had signed the new SMEU Unit A agreement covering FY23 through FY25. It gives 3% cost-of-living raises for FY23 and FY24, FY25 pay set by the citywide wage and compensation study under a new classification system and salary scales, an extra week of vacation and a move to vacation accrual, a bigger longevity bonus and eligibility for the city's new paid family and medical leave. Wilson pitched it as making the city "an employer of choice" (City of Somerville, Oct 23). The money was already in place. On Oct. 8 Chief Administrative Officer Kimberly Wells brought the Council appropriations for three ratified contracts, and all of them passed (Oct 8 digest):

  • SMEU Unit A: $308,504 from Salary Contingency. The digest also lists a new sick-leave bank and higher clothing and car allowances.
  • Police Superior Officers: $384,000 from the Salary and Wage Stabilization Fund (11-0) for the FY25 retroactive piece. Ward 2 Councilor JT Scott confirmed it isn't a new contract.
  • SEIU Chapter 3 school custodians: $107,636 from the stabilization fund (11-0) and $59,307 from Salary Contingency, covering retroactive FY26 pay and July through September.

Before that came the city's three-year deal with Firefighters Local 76 on Sept. 15, with 2% raises each year (see capital plan), and $19,986 for the Local 888 crossing guards on the Sept. 24 agenda (26-1411). The Council spent 77 minutes in executive session on collective bargaining on Sept. 10 (26-1364). The open-session discussion afterward tied that session to police oversight, not to this unit; see Civilian police oversight.

The story

Who is organizing

Somerville's unionized city workforce is represented by the Somerville Municipal Employees Union (SMEU, sometimes written SMEA) and its units, plus the police, fire and school custodial unions. Roughly 200-plus professional staff, such as planners, program managers and equity and housing staff, sat outside all of it. Organizers first tried to join SMEU. When that stalled they went to AFSCME Council 93 and formed Somerville Workers United, aiming at a unit of about 220 positions (Cambridge Day).

By Wilson's own account, the organizing team first contacted his administration on May 12 (Cambridge Day). Kate Bossingham, an environmental policy manager in Sustainability and Environment, told the Council the union sent two meeting requests that May and got no response.

May 20 to May 22

Organizers keep coming back to what happened over three days in May. On May 20 Wilson spoke in support of unions at the Greater Boston Labor Council's municipal legislative breakfast at the Somerville Armory. That afternoon, Bossingham said, he went into layoff meetings with staff "most of which were within the Somerville Workers United proposed bargaining unit" (Cambridge Day). That evening the Council spent three and a half hours in closed executive session on collective bargaining (digest).

On the Friday of Memorial Day weekend the city announced it was cutting 29 positions, 13 of them filled, to close a $5.4 million FY27 shortfall. A city spokesperson said two of the 13 were already-unionized employees and that the city "is not aware which positions are proposed for inclusion in a union purportedly being organized."

SWU said most of the laid-off workers had signed union cards. It named where 10 of the 13 came from: four in Health and Human Services, two in Strategic Planning and Community Development, two in Racial and Social Justice, one in Grants Development and one in Sustainability and Environment (Cambridge Day). At the June 10 budget hearing, resident Nate Clauser told the Finance Committee that roughly 90% of the eliminated positions sat inside the proposed unit. That would be about a 15% cut to the unit during an active organizing campaign (digest).

The retaliation claim

Working Mass, the labor outlet published by Boston DSA, reported that three SWU organizers were among those laid off. It quoted sustainability planner Josh Eckert-Lee: "a fair amount of these layoffs could absolutely be seen as retaliatory." These are claims by named workers, published by an advocacy outlet; no unfair-labor-practice charge has been reported.

The recognized unions have a separate complaint. Emily Mayernik, a licensed mental health counselor and SMEU member, said the city laid off an SMEU colleague on May 20 and told the union only on May 21. That same day it told SMEU that Mayernik herself would go the next day. She said SMEU sent a cease-and-desist letter the city ignored, and that she was sent home immediately with active cases open: "We don't disappear on people. That's not acceptable behavior" (Globe).

May 28: the Council weighs in

Every councilor signed on to a resolution supporting voluntary recognition. Ward 3 Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen, a co-sponsor: "I've been on this council for nine years. I have not seen layoffs." Luis Quizhpe, laid off weeks short of four years as strategic planning and equity manager, said recognition "would have prevented the work we were doing for our most vulnerable residents from being unceremoniously strangled."

The Council also approved two orders from At-Large Councilor Will Mbah. They require the administration to list every cut position, explain how the cuts square with the mayor's equity agenda, and present the reorganization to the Council. Mbah: "If municipal government doesn't reflect the population itself, then don't use the word equity in your administration." What happened to the equity department he was defending is on Racial and Social Justice becomes Equity and Belonging.

Council resolutions are non-binding. SWU met Wilson the next day, May 29, to ask for recognition directly. It said that if he declined, it had the numbers to file for Written Majority Authorization, the Massachusetts card-check route.

Where it sits

Wilson says he supports the effort: "I fully support workers' rights to unionize, and I'm looking forward to working with the group and the organizers helping them at AFSCME." He also hired former Massachusetts AFL-CIO president Steve Tolman to advise on city contract negotiations. As of late May the Globe counted five expired union contracts, four more expiring in June and seven under active negotiation.

Earlier this year the recognized unions got $719,817 in retroactive SMEU Unit D money on April 23, $196,086 for the Unit D vacation payout in June, $204,400 for a three-year SEIU Chapter 3 custodians contract on July 9 and $937,409 for the Local 76 agreement on Aug. 27 (26-1253). Negotiations with the patrol officers' union are still open and tangled up with body cameras.

What's next

  • DLR representation ruling: the competing petitions have to be resolved before the city says it will engage; no hearing date has been announced.
  • Contract funding: bargaining money shows up in Finance and on Council agendas. Unit A is now signed and funded, and the superior officers and custodians are funded too. The patrol officers' contract is the big one still open, and any SWU contract would eventually need Council money as well.
  • Anytime: SWU has said it can file for Written Majority Authorization. A filing, a DLR election or voluntary recognition would each end the standoff.
  • September 2026: in June, workers told Working Mass they expected another round of layoffs within about three months (outcome not in our sources yet).