Health Care Article Re-Negotiated, Clears Way for Ratification

The Federation-led Super Coalition of all state employee unions today wrapped up the re-negotiation process on the health care article that goes in all contracts.

It's a bit anti-climactic. The only thing changed is the part of the article on a wellness incentive program. That came out because it had potential fiscal impact not funded by the Legislature. The current split where the employer pays 88 percent of your health insurance premium and you pay 12 percent remains.

So maintaining that ratio in these tough times is a big victory.

But the reality is the Legislature did cut about $200 million in funding for your benefits. So the Public Employees Benefits Board may increase point-of-service costs, such as office visit co-pays. That will come later and is outside the collective bargaining process.

With the completion of the health care re-negotiation, ratification of all completed contracts can now go forward. The Federation's Collective Bargaining Committee on May 7 OK'd a ratification plan for the re-negotiated contracts that relies on mail ballots, unless a team, like Eastern Washington University, asks for permission to conduct onsite balloting.

Those ratification balloting materials will head to press next week so they can get in the mail as soon as possible. We'll have more details on deadlines early next week. Contract information, including all re-negotiated articles as well as the complete re-negotiated 2009-2011 contracts will begin to appear on our website.

Two contracts have not wrapped up: UW and WSU.

We know many of you have been anxious to see the few articles that have been changed from what you originally ratified last fall. But the Legislature had to act on health care funding before the health care article could be re-negotiated. And, frankly, we discovered some discrepancies in the contract documents from what we had agreed to at the table. That took more time than we wanted. But it was important that those discrepancies be resolved with the state so you had a complete and accurate package of re-negotiated articles to review and vote on.

So stay tuned and thank you for our patience. In these tough economic times, the contract re-negotiations and funding have taken us into uncharted territory we hope never to enter again.