To recap, all of the Federation’s contracts have now been ratified, beating the Oct. 1 deadline set in law. It’s important to make that deadline—it’s one of the legal conditions before the governor can request funding and before the Legislature can vote on that funding.
Since Monday noon, when the General Government, Higher Education Coalition and Washington State University ratification results came in, four more contracts have been ratified:
• Eastern Washington University Bargaining Unit 1 – 94-39 to ratify.
• Eastern Washington University Bargaining Unit 2 – 9-4 to ratify.
• University of Washington Police Management – 5-0 to ratify.
• University of Washington (main Seattle campus, Harborview Medical Center, Bothell, Tacoma, Friday Harbor, Pack Forest) – 474-136 to ratify.
While we’re on the subject of contracts, some of you have voiced concern about recent media reports suggesting the Legislature is considering unilaterally changing these contracts because of the dark economic clouds on the horizon.
To set the record straight: The Legislature votes on the funding of the contracts. They cannot change the contracts. They can’t touch the non-economic parts. On the compensation and other economic items, they vote thumbs up or thumbs down on funding. If they vote down the funding, the state and the Federation go back into negotiations.
The short answer is: The Legislature can’t micromanage your contracts. And with your help, the Federation will once again mount a comprehensive campaign to win legislative funding for what we believe is a package of fiscally responsible contracts.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comment Policy
We appreciate our readers and thank you for adding to the discussion. The following guidelines are established to ensure respectful tone in the comments of readers so we can all enjoy the site.
• Keep comments on topic - any comment that appears to be off-topic will be edited or deleted.
• Profanity - we’re PG13 here. Moderate language is allowed, but we reserve the right to edit out anything offensive.
• Personal attacks - personal attacks on the authors or other commentators will result in an immediate ban.
• Editor’s right - While we encourage comments that challenge or offer constructed criticism, we reserve the right to edit or remove any post, and to ban a user.*
• External linking - external links are ok, if they are relevant to the original post and your comment. Simply linking to your own site will be frowned upon.
Final Words
You, and only you, are responsible for your words. Once your comment is submitted, that’s it — you’re immortalized. Think before you submit.
*WFSE members are protected under the following Communications Ethics policy:
Under the provisions of the AFSCME “Bill of Rights for Union Members” regarding communications, “Members shall suffer no impairment of freedom of speech concerning the operations of this union. Active discussion of union affairs shall be encouraged and protected within this organization.”
If you believe your comments were removed unfairly, you may protest the removal of your post to the Communications Committee. Leave your protest at Contact Us on WFSE.org