Houston municipal workers will get raises of 12.5 percent over three years under a tentative contract announced by the mayor and union officials Monday.

Under the proposal, all employees will receive an additional $116 per pay period, about $3,000 more a year. The contract will raise minimum pay each year and increase base wages for all eligible employees by 3.5 percent in the second and third years.

Houston Organization of Public Employees, or HOPE, represents more than 13,000 city workers in departments ranging from the 311 call center operators and library employees to Solid Waste and Public Works crews.

“This is the biggest raise we’ve ever gotten,” Sonia Rico, HOPE president, said after the news conference announcing the tentative contract.

The city did not put an overall price tag on the contract Monday, but Mayor John Whitmire said the first-year raise already is calculated into the fiscal 2025 budget.

The minimum wage for city workers will be $16.75 per hour. That will increase to $17.25 an hour in the second year of the agreement and $18 an hour in the third.

The union endorsed Whitmire for mayor last year as the “worker friendly” candidate, and Rico said she worked tirelessly to help with his campaign.

“He understands the importance of having a union, and that’s big for us,” Rico said after Monday’s news conference announcing the tentative contract.

A majority of union members and City Council must sign off on the agreement before it is enacted. 

Rico said in April that Whitmire’s agreement with the firefighter union encouraged HOPE members.  

The city firefighters union reached a $1.5 billion deal in June and secured 10 percent base salary increases for the first year. The five-year contract could result in 36 percent increases for rank-and-file firefighters by the end of the period. Officials have yet to finalize a plan on how to pay for the agreement as the city already faces a $160 million deficit in 2026 from disaster recovery costs.

HOPE leadership proposed 18 percent base raises when negotiating their 2021 contract but settled for 9 percent, according to the Houston Chronicle. Rico told Houston Landing Monday that the union did not get everything it intended, but it set a good precedent for negotiations in another three years.

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