A major share of City Hall’s 4,000 employees have selected their union bargaining agents who will take the lead in contract talks with the city on wages, benefits, health insurance, holiday pay, working conditions and other issues.

In results that were anticipated, city administrative and technical employees, whose more than 800 members include office staff and social workers, among others, chose the Service Employees International Union Local 512.

“This is a long time coming,” Otissa Williams, an employee for Richmond’s Department of Social Services who has pushed for union, stated in a release she issued after the vote. “Now, we actually have a voice in what we receive as far as compensation.”

Election results were made available on June 22.

Along with SEIU, the group that has long represented Fire Department employees, Local 995 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, also won the formal endorsement to be the bargaining agent for the 447 fire personnel and emergency dispatchers listed in the unit.

With police officers already having voted to have the Richmond Coalition of Police represent them, that leaves only two city units without representation.

Labor and Trades remains up in the air as neither of the two unions competing to represent the 610 employees in the Department of Public Works and Department of Public Utilities gained enough votes, requiring another election.

Teamsters Local 322 won 113 votes, one vote short of the 114 needed to win outright in an election in which 227 unit members participated. Local 804 of the Labors International Union of North America received 92 votes, with the remaining votes reflecting opposition to any union.

At this point, too few members of the final bargaining unit, professional employees, have agreed to unionize. Initially, 30 percent of the unit would need to sign union cards before an election for a bargaining agents could be held. SEIU had been the only union seeking to represent that group.

City Council has strongly backed unions for all rank-and-file employees, overriding Mayor Levar M. Stoney who sought to limit unionizing to those in labor and trades.

While bargaining is expected to soon begin for the three units that now are represented, the impact of union negotiations on city expenditures will not be felt until next year.

The 2023-24 budget has already been approved and will go into effect on Saturday, July 1, ensuring any changes in personnel costs due to unionizing would affect the 2024-25 budget that will be considered next spring.

Roughly 4,000 full-time, part-time, and temporary workers work for the city of Richmond. It is the fourth largest employer in the city, according to Virginia Employment Commission figures cited in Richmond’s budget.

Although Richmond’s new budget won’t be considered until early next year, planners already are drafting the upcoming budget, which may have to include new costs from collectively bargained contracts.