The West Side Community Healthcare District Board of Directors agreed to a contract extension with a local UnitedSteel workers union on Monday. The agreement will be sent to the union, who will decide on the agreement.

For more than a year, Local Union TEMSA 12911 have been negotiating for wage and benefits increases. The union’s contract expired in September 2024, but was extended through March 2025 in an effort to get bond Measure A passed. The bond measure, which introduced a parcel tax of $69 per parcel to provide the district revenue for ambulance services and other necessities, did not receive the required two-thirds vote in Stanislaus and Merced counties.

With the proposed bond measure not passing, the union agreed to extend its contract through September 2025 to give the district time to negotiate. Fernando Mirelez, the union’s staff representative, previously told the Westside Connect that both parties agreed on a 16% wage increase for full-time emergency medical technicians and paramedics during the first discussion of a contract extension in September 2024.

Mirelez told the Connect in July 2025, 1,400 members are in the union and work at 14 different occupations

In a text message to the Westside Connect, he stated that he has no comment on the current matter.

Before the board agreed on the contract, two changes were made in the agreement’s language. The final sentences of the two paragraphs mentioned in the agreement were removed following concerns from Nicolas Cardella, an attorney at Fresno-based Wagner Jones Helsley PC. The final sentence in the first paragraph stated that the extension will include an agreement on the previous two extensions agreed by both parties. The other sentence mentioned an “all anniversary step increases.”

Cardella said the two sentences in the contract could be the union’s attempt to “backdoor us” after he recalled district representatives telling the union that they’ll deal with wage increase in collective bargaining agreement negotiations.