SAN JOSE, Calif. (KRON) — A city worker strike was averted this week in San Jose. The mayor of San Jose is less than cheerful about the deal reached between the city and union employees.

On Friday, city workers and their supporters held a press conference to fire back at Mayor Matt Mahan’s comments.

Earlier in the week, on Tuesday, the San Jose City Council voted in closed session to approve increased investments in staffing. Union members were pretty feeling good about the new deal, but Mayor Mahan, not so much.

“What our likely families will likely see because of this is higher taxes and service cuts such as library hours and 911 response times,” Mahan said.

At Friday’s press conference, San Jose city workers, community leaders and elected took aim at that the mayor’s comments.

“Right now, we are seeing rhetoric that the City of San Jose workers are somehow pitted against the city residents, and that services are going to be cut. We know that the City of San Jose can afford the contract and city services do not have to be cut in order to do that,” said Rachel Atkins, treasurer of municipal employee relations.

That is not the way the mayor views it. He criticized the city council for something he thinks is a bad deal for San Jose residents.

“While the majority of my colleagues support this deal, I cannot! Our leaders were elected to represent the people, and the needs of the people took a backseat,” he said.

“I think it was important to call out the mayor for the divisive language and misinformation that he has been spreading during negotiations,” said city council member Peter Ortiz. “The city made a decision. Both administration and our city council to invest in our workforce. When you invest in our workforce, we improve our recruitment and our retention of our employees. These are the individuals who are running our community centers. They’re running our programs. It’s key that they work in a place that they’re happy to work for and feel appreciated.”

Folks here say the most significant aspect of the new contract is the increase in wages.

“We received a historic wage increase,” said Nick Rovetto, vice president of the municipal employee federation.

Union representatives say the new contract will also address employee recruitment and retention moving forward.