MORE ON THE LAWSUIT
The lawsuit the Federation and one legislator filed to get your negotiated economic package before the Legislature has generated a lot of e-mails from members and press attention.
Because it was filed just before Christmas, you may have missed it and got only the spin from business-biased newspaper editorial writers and knee-jerk talk radio hosts.
So, here's a detailed explanation. A FAQ on the lawsuit will be on the website soon. The lawsuit document and other material is already at www.wfse.org so you can see for yourself what it's really all about.
All about the lawsuit:
Many editorial writers and radio talk show hosts have misrepresented the reasons behind the lawsuit. Please don't be misled. It is not about greed, it is about principle.
You and your union spent hundreds of thousands of dollars negotiating a contract that the governor cannot unilaterally ignore.
The governor needs to ask before she takes away something she herself negotiated with you. That means letting the Legislature consider ideas to raise revenue she may not wish to propose. And it may mean re-opening contract negotiations to formally ask you in these tough times what you would be willing to give up-and fair consideration of ideas you and others have to save jobs and programs.
That's not greed. That's about standing up for your jobs and the quality services you provide.
Our lawsuit cannot compel the governor to spend a dime on your raises. That's because the governor can only propose that and all other spending. Only the Legislature can decide.
But the lawsuit does aim to compel the governor to forward a proposal that the Legislature can debate. The Legislature still has the final say. If they vote down the funding for your pay raises, it forces new negotiations. It's unclear if the governor's inaction takes away your ability to go back to the table.
The lawsuit is really about compelling the governor to honor the contracts she negotiated and that you ratified. Your bargaining teams wrapped up negotiations and you ratified them by the Oct. 1 deadline set in law. And we followed the law by forwarding those contracts to the Governor's Office of Financial Management by the Oct. 1 deadline for inclusion in the governor's budget request.
You followed the law. Why shouldn't the governor?
In technical terms, we believe she is required by law to forward a funding request on the General Government and Higher Education Coalition contracts; again, her labor relations office negotiated those with the union and then they were forwarded to her budget office. We also believe she is legally bound to forward a funding request for the UW, WSU and EWU contracts negotiated at the institution level; they, too, were required by law to go to her budget office for inclusion in her budget.
But when the governor rolled out her budget request Dec. 18, she included no proposals for any of your economic package. The governor used the "financial feasibility" clause in the 2002 collective bargaining law to say that even though she agreed to the economic parts of our contracts, she can unilaterally ignore them in tough economic times. And as it stands, she proposes no pay raises-and big cuts. She wants to: cut another 2,600 state jobs; close three institutions, 13 state parks and seven fish hatcheries; scale back Community Corrections supervision of dangerous offenders; and much more.
On top of that, she did nothing to find creative ways to raise revenue to save jobs, save programs and maybe, just maybe, save at least part of your negotiated economic package.
Her action seems to imply there will be no chance to re-open negotiations so we have a formal chance to propose ways to save the state money and save jobs. We have proposed cutting just a fraction of the $54 billion in tax breaks to corporations; some are outdated and no longer effective. We have proposed cutting special pay and bonuses given to middle managers in the Washington Management Service. Many of you have submitted "Sensible Solutions" ideas through our website to save money; we want to put those on the table as well.
What we're asking is not unprecedented. In King County, labor and management re-opened negotiations and agreed to a program of unpaid furlough days to save money. In states as large as Florida and as small as New Hampshire, governors have rejected state employee layoffs and even cutting negotiated pay raises as the absolutely wrong way to bring about economic recovery.
Here, too, it comes down to maintaining a quality state government and quality services. As our governor is fond of saying, "the great state of Washington" is great because of you and the work you do. That's worth fighting for. And that's what the lawsuit is about.
We truly hold this governor in high regard. We believe she is sincere in her concerns about preserving our quality of life in these tough economic times. But on the issue of what you should sacrifice, she is going about it in the wrong way.
That's why we have asked a judge to quickly referee the dispute so the Legislature is clear about what they can and cannot do based on what the governor forwards (or doesn't forward) to them.
The governor has said that "everything is on the table" for consideration as we join to build our economic recovery. But much was left off the table in her budget plan. Nothing about rolling back tax loopholes. Nothing about Washington Management Service. Nothing about raising revenue to preserve programs adopted by the Legislature-and indirectly--voters.
The economic crisis cannot be balanced on your back. Yet, she wants you to give up the pay raises and other economic provisions she negotiated with you. Her proposal is an assault on pension funding, the salary survey, other negotiated pay equity adjustments, funding to help those in the most dangerous jobs pay their higher workers' comp rates, and much more.
Instead, the governor should be willing to have a full and free debate in the Legislature and at the bargaining table. We believe that's what the law says. We believe that's what the contract says. And we believe it's the right thing to do.
We expect to get a court hearing later this month. We hope to have a judge's ruling in time so legislators' authority is clear by the time they start full budget debate in March.
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