TENTATIVE AGREEMENT REACHED ON RE-NEGOTIATED GENERAL GOVERNMENT CONTRACT

The Federation’s General Government Bargaining Team late this afternoon reached tentative agreement on a re-negotiated contract brought on by these tough economic times.

We will summarize the agreement here. The detailed articles and FAQs are being prepared and will be available as soon as possible.

A health care article will wait until the Legislature approves language in the budget. If the Legislature adjourns as scheduled April 26, then the Super Coalition of all state employee unions led by the Federation will convene, probably sometime in May, to negotiate the health care article.

Ratification, when you get to vote on all the changes, will take place after that. If ratified, the contract will take effect July 1.

You have seen the worldwide headlines and the news from other states and public employers. So you know the contract has no economics. But it preserves important protections negotiated and ratified by you last fall, makes some important gains in non-economic articles and provides a process for re-visiting economic issues if the economy improves during the term of the 2009-2011 contract.

Here then is a summary of the General Government agreement reached shortly before 5 p.m., today, Thursday, April 2:

• PRESERVED GAINS MADE LAST FALL

The bargaining team preserved important gains you made in the first round of negotiations that ended in September 2008, including: one new personal leave day in each year of the agreement; overtime after 8 for those in the Department of Transportation Highway Maintenance Bargaining Unit and employees who do inspections in the Fruit/Vegetable Inspection Bargaining Unit within the state Department of Agriculture; and the new article on Workplace Behavior that came from your campaign against bullying.

• ECONOMIC PROCESS

The global economic crisis transcended the economic package the state and union agreed on last fall. The parties acknowledged that the economic terms agreed to in September 2008, including across-the-board raises, salary survey adjustments, classification adjustments and workers’ comp payment allowances for high-risk jobs, are not funded based upon the state budget director’s December 2008 finding that those terms were not economically feasible. However, under a memorandum of understanding agreed to today, if the economy improves during the 2009-2011 biennium, the Federation and state can re-visit the economic terms of the contract agreed to in September 2008.

• HEALTH CARE

As we said earlier, health care is now in the Legislature’s court. Once lawmakers approve a budget, the Super Coalition of state employee unions led by the Federation will negotiate a health care article. Right now, the current split where the state picks up 88 percent of health premium costs and employees pay 12 percent looks good in the budget deliberations. And we have to keep it that way. So call 1-800-562-6000 and urge your legislators to support the 88/12 split in employer-employee premium share costs in the two budget proposals, SB 5600 and HB 1244.

GAINS:

• HOURS OF WORK

Under Article 6.3A2, the employer will consider an employee’s preference when adjusting the employee’s work schedule.

• VACATION LEAVE

Under Article 11.4, accrual in the fifth, sixth and seventh years of service will e based on TOTAL years of employment, not the current continuous language. This brings the contract in line with work rules for unrepresented employees.

• WORK RELATED INJURY OR ILLNESS

Article 19 was changed to reflect a 2007 law change allowing injured workers to take both sick leave and timeloss at the same time.

• UNION-MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATION COMMITTEES

Under Article 37.4, the Federation and agencies can document mutual understandings reached at the UMCC table, a move that puts some teeth into this article.

• SHARED SERVICES

Under a new Article 45.5, the union can suggest ways that one agency may expand operations to provide services to other state agencies—a way to mitigate budgetary constraints.

• WORKLOAD

The memorandum of understanding dealing with workload concerns was extended to June 30, 2010.

AND AT THE END OF THE DAY…

…After months of controversy—and pending ratification—you will have a contract come July 1. That is vitally important, especially when it comes to the contract provisions on layoffs and grievance procedure. That ultimately is the best outcome of these negotiations.

COMING UP:

The Higher Education Coalition Bargaining Team returns to the table tomorrow (Friday, April 3) and the University of Washington Bargaining Team negotiates April 9.