The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.
Washington state employees are looking at good wage increases over the next two years as a result of a tentative agreement between their unions and the negotiating team representing the governor’s office.
By some estimates, it will raise the cost of wages and benefits about $1.6 billion over the next two years if the Legislature approves the deal as part of the 2023-25 budget it must pass next year.
In mid-September, the unions were accusing the governor’s team of all manner of unkind things, like skimping on public safety, disrespecting and lowballing them, and proposing dangerously low and unsafe staffing levels. Roughly a week later, in announcing their tentative agreement, the unions were touting “the largest compensation package in history,” with a proposed raise of 4 percent in the first year and 3 percent in the second, plus $1,000 bonuses for employees who got COVID shots.
So apparently the unions went from being somewhere south of Rodney Dangerfield to cranking up the chorus of “We Are the Champions” by Queen in a few short days. One might wonder why. But one would have to wait.
Some folks, including Republicans in the Legislature and budget watchers at the Washington Policy Center, have long complained that state labor negotiations are closed.
Lawmakers, the press and most of all, the public — who pays those salaries through taxes — aren’t allowed in the room during talks. They only see the final tentative agreement after the two sides shake hands. The Policy Center has backed a series of local initiatives to require contract talks between local governments and their unions to be open, which usually pass with healthy margins but sometimes wind up in court.
As someone who has sat at a negotiating table — full disclosure: The reporters, copy editors and photographers at The Spokesman-Review have a small in-house union of which I was once president — I’m not a fan of opening up the contract talks to anyone who wants to pop in any time. Pretty sure that the business executives on Policy Center’s various boards and committees wouldn’t want their wage discussions with employees open to the public.
Before you say “Well, taxpayers aren’t paying for private company wage increases,” you obviously weren’t paying attention when businesses argued against raising the minimum wage on the grounds that it would drive the cost of all goods and services up to the general public … which is pretty much the same as “taxpayers.”
Context is important in talks. It is common for workers to swing for the fences in their opening request and management to lowball the union with its counter offer. So keeping things on the down-low during state employee contracts doesn’t bother me.
I do agree, however, with Policy Center’s recent request for the state to release the opening offers on both sides. I’d even go farther, and say all the offers of both sides put on the table should now be released, to explain how the two sides came together.
The Office of Financial Management rejected the request. The contracts have not yet been approved by the Legislature, it said, so the agreements are tentative.
The problem with that reasoning is that the contract approval equals biennial budget approval, which isn’t going to happen for at least six months. The Legislature rarely rejects negotiated contract and can’t make changes, like shaving raises by a fraction of a percentage point.
If the Legislature balks, the sides would have to go back to the bargaining table and come up with a new tentative agreement, which would add who knows how long to the release of documents.
Plus, while the Public Records Act may allow the state to withhold those documents, it doesn’t require it. A 1980 attorney general’s opinion said exemptions are “permissive rather than mandatory.”
In a situation where the state allegedly went from being a penurious miser to a beneficent provider of the largest contract in history, it would be in everybody’s interest to shed a little light on the path they trod.
