Clark County employees represented by five unions approved new three-year contracts in March — and leveraged a recent arbitration award to get longevity pay and inflation-based raises.
The Coalition of Unions includes Office and Professional Workers International Union (OPEIU) Local 11, AFSCME Local 307, Laborers Local 335, PROTEC17, and — for the first time — Machinists Local 1432. The unions negotiate together but ultimately have separate contracts.
The new agreements include an across-the-board 3% cost of living raise retroactive to Jan. 1, 2025, plus consumer price index (CPI)-based cost-of-living adjustments between 2 and 4% in 2026 and 2027.
In the last contracts, workers got predetermined raises of 2 to 2.2% each year. But not long after negotiations on a new set of contracts began in July 2024, an arbitrator ruled that Clark County had violated a “me too” clause in the previous union contracts — by giving the county manager raises of 10% in 2023 and 5% in 2024. The arbitrator said the county owed workers raises — and that if payments weren’t made within a few months, the county would have to start paying interest on the back pay owed to workers. Unions filed another grievance when the county manager got another 5% raise in 2025.
“Between the second class-action grievance and the looming interest payment, the county was definitely concerned,” said PROTEC17 union representative Rachel Whiteside. “We were able to leverage those things to get some significant wins into our contracts, things that we’ve been trying to achieve for many, many bargaining cycles with no luck.”
The new contracts include CPI-based annual raises and longevity pay — an additional 2% raise for workers when they hit 15 years with the county. To get those wins, the unions waived the interest payments and withdrew the 2025 grievance.
OPEIU Local 11 union representative Karyn Morrison said the new contracts still have a “me too” clause, but the clause is no longer meant to apply to the county manager or elected officials. The clause was originally added because Clark County would wrap up bargaining with unions and then give its non-represented employees bigger raises, Morrison said.
The five unions represent around 750 employees, with OPEIU and AFSCME each representing more than 200.
Members of all five unions approved their contracts. AFSCME union representative Mike Boyer said Local 307’s contract was approved with 85% support, but only half of members voted. OPEIU Local 11 said 97% of voting members supported ratification.
