Tentative Settlement Announced In State Worker Contract Talks

By Tim KlassAssociated Press Writer (AP) – Agreement was reached early Monday on a contract providing 4.8 percent pay increases for 30,000 Washington state general government workers over the next two years, union leaders said. With wages the top issue in talks covering about half the state’s unionized work force, settlement was achieved about 1:30 a.m. at the Thurston County fairgrounds in Olympia, Tim Welch, a spokesman for the Washington Federation of State Employees, told The Associated Press. The most significant other issue was resolved more than a week earlier with a multi-union agreement for workers to continue to pay 12 percent of the cost of their health insurance. The tentative contract provides “a fairly decent wage package and controls health insurance costs for our members” while preserving seniority and other key provisions that negotiators for Gov. Gary Locke sought to weaken or eliminate, Welch said. There was no immediate word from the state labor relations office, which was closed when the union announced the agreement. Telephone messages left by The Associated Press at the office were not immediately returned. Union leaders will campaign for membership approval and the deal will likely have a strong influence on talks scheduled to resume later Monday on contracts covering most of the federation’s 10,000 members who work in higher education, Welch said. “It probably will set a precedent,” he said. Welch said he did not know how the agreement might affect talks covering 20,000 other state employees represented by about 20 other unions. The union’s next talks cover employees at the University of Washington, The Evergreen State College and the community college system. Negotiations covering Washington State University and Eastern Washington University may take longer to resolve, Welch said. The talks are the first under a state law which established a collective bargaining process covering 60,000 unionized state workers whose terms had been set by the Legislature. Once union members accept a settlement, it goes before the Legislature for an up-or-down vote. Each agreement must be reached and ratified by union members by Oct. 1 to be incorporated into the proposed two-year state budget that is submitted to lawmakers in January. Had no agreement been reached, the union was set to take a strike vote next week. If ratified, the deal could still be a tough sell to legislators facing a $750 million budget gap in the two-year fiscal period that begins July 1, Welch said. “We have a fight in the Legislature. We have to convince them that this is a fair package,” he said. While all 98 House seats and about half of the 49 Senate seats are on the ballot in November, Welch noted that Locke’s aides have given key lawmakers regular progress reports on the talks. “Certainly they could have raised red flags as the negotiations went on,” he said. “We have to see what the composition of the Legislature will be.” Welch said the union’s 109-member bargaining committee would campaign for approval of the deal. Voting begins Sept. 20 at more than 20 locations and concludes Sept. 26. Ballots, including absentees, may be tallied as early as Sept. 27, Welch said. The pay increases, a 3.2 percent cost-of-living boost next July 1 and a 1.6 percent COLA on July 1, 2006, are the first for union members since 2001. About 2,400 workers in 175 job classifications would get additional raises to bring their pay within 25 percent below the average in the private sector as indicated by a state salary survey. For example, Welch said, top-scale state pharmacy assistants, now shown to be getting about 45 percent less than their private sector counterparts with pay amounting to about $30,600 a year, would get a 20 percent boost, about $6,100. The contract also maintained existing seniority rights concerning layoffs and recall from layoffs, he said. The two sides could not reach agreement on language to cover the contracting out of jobs in union jurisdiction, so the proposed contract is silent on that issue, Welch said.