It’s going to be a l-o-n-g summer for those involved in contract negotiations between Washington State University and the Washington Federation of State Employees — the union representing approximately 1,250 WSU classified staff employees who are covered by one of five WFSE collective bargaining agreements.
Contract negotiations began in mid January and have been progressing at a snail’s pace, according to officials from both sides. Contract meetings usually include two WFSE union negotiators, nine WSU classified staff employees who were elected to represent various bargaining units, and six representatives from WSU’s administration.
What makes this year’s negotiation process unusual and substantially more difficult is that this is the first comprehensive WSU-WFSE contract, including everything from wages to leaves, training, hiring, firing and reviews.
Pushing the negotiations is a legislative deadline requiring that the contract be complete and submitted to the governor’s office by Oct. 1. The state, which is negotiating and receiving similar contracts from unions statewide, needs those documents in hand by early fall so the Office of Financial Management can review them, project costs and make recommendations to the governor, who must submit his proposed budget in December. Then, the Legislature uses that information to address budget issues in January.
During the first four negotiation sessions, no real progress was made as the two sides could not agree on negotiation ground rules. The biggest issue there involved the union’s request to have all union representatives given paid release time to participate in the meetings. The university initially said no, then made a compromise proposal, but the union did not agree to the compromise.
Seeing the impasse, the two sides agreed to proceed without ground rules. The next three meetings were spent as union representatives read aloud 32 out of their 62 non-economic contract proposals. University negotiators asked that the union simply give them their written proposals, so they could review them in entirety and begin to respond and/or make their own proposals.
One contract or two?
On April 6, the university began making its proposals, and negotiations began. However, an immediate hurdle was confronted. In its first four proposals, the university said it planned to negotiate two separate contracts — one for nonsupervisory staff and one for supervisory staff.
The union said no. It wants one contract for both groups.
“We’ve been presented with no substantive or logical reason for having two contracts,” said Electra Jubon, chief negotiator for the WFSE, … “without that it (negotiating two contracts) seems like an incredible waste of time and resources for both sides.”
Glenn Frye, WSU’s labor relations officer, disagrees. “The new collective bargaining law prohibits supervisors from being included in the same bargaining unit as nonsupervisory staff. So we feel it appropriate to separate them.
“Supervisors have power to assign duties, hire, fire, discipline, evaluate or recommend those things, which is significantly different than the responsibilities that the average classified staff person has or is measured by. We want a contract that identifies those things and allows us to hold supervisors accountable.”
The state views the difference in duties between nonsupervisory and supervisory positions as “demonstrably” different, said Steve DeSoer, director of human resource services for WSU.
“If there is a demonstrable difference,” said Jubon, “I don’t remember that being communicated to us … Any issues applying to supervisors can be addressed by an article or specific provisions in articles.”
Noneconomic proposals
Within its 62 proposed articles, WFSE has made a wide number of “noneconomic” contract proposals — not related to salaries and benefits — that would have a substantial financial impact on the university if approved.
In an April 10 news article by reporter Brad Shannon from The Olympian newspaper about the negotiations between the governor and the WFSE for general government, it was estimated that the WFSE noneconomic contract requests would cost the state up to $3 billion over the next two years. WFSE is currently making similar proposals for other union contracts around the state, including WSU.
Jubon said the union’s proposals “are a reflection of what our membership said they wanted and they represent a starting place” for the negotiations. “That does not mean that’s where we’ll end up.”
Frye said the university’s concern with many of these proposals is that they call for “compensating WFSE bargaining unit members for substantial amounts of time not worked.”
Following is a list that provides a brief description of some major contract proposals submitted by WFSE and WSU:
WFSE contract proposals
• Sabbaticals and training: Employees would be granted educational leave with pay and benefits at their regular salary rate for periods not to exceed 24 months. The university also would provide leave with pay for employees to attend classes during work hours.
• Family and medical leave: In the case of a serious health condition, an employee would be eligible for 12 weeks of paid family/medical leave, plus a possible 40 weeks of additional unpaid leave, during which the university will continue to pay the full cost of the employee’s health insurance. During an approved family/medical leave, the employee would continue to accrue seniority.
• Paid holidays: Expand the number of paid holidays per year from 10 to 15, including election day, Workers Memorial Day, Abraham Lincoln’s and George Washington’s birthdays and New Year’s Eve. Whenever a holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, employees will select the preceding Friday or following Monday as the holiday.
• Miscellaneous paid leaves: The university would provide 4 hours per year to donate blood; 10 days per year for bereavement leave; 3 hours per day if unable to report to work as a result of “inclement” weather; 4 personal leave days per year with pay.
• Sick Leave: Increase sick leave accrual from 8 hours/month to 12 hours/month. At 10 years of service, an employee would accrue two additional hours/month for each five years of service. The university would provide for 100 percent cashout of accrued unused sick leave on annual basis.
• Paid leave for community volunteer work: The WFSE is proposing miscellaneous paid leaves for each employee under this contract, with each worker eligible to receive up to 40 hours/year of paid leave to do community volunteer work.
• Injured worker benefits: Employees suffering a work-related injury or illness would receive paid leave without using any personal vacation and/or sick leave, including time for therapy, followup appointments and other related issues.
• License/certification fees: The university would pay for all work-related licensing and/or certification fees for employees; two society or association fees; and at least two publications relating to the employees field.
• Exchanging sick leave for vacation leave: Employees upon request would be able to exchange any of their accrued sick leave for vacation leave at the rate of 100 percent, hour for hour.
• Vacation leave: Paid vacation leave for full-time employees would be accrued at an increased annual rate. First year accrual would increase from 96 hr./yr. to 120 hr./yr.; second year from 104.4 hr./yr. to 136 hr./yr.; third year from 111.9 hr./yr. to 160 hr./yr.; fourth year from 111.9 hr./yr. to 200 hr./yr.; fifth year from 120 hr./yr. to 240 hr./yr.; and at 21 years of service, employees will accrue an additional 2 days each year thereafter.
• Commute trip reduction: Where vanpooling programs are not available, university vehicles would be made available as alternatives to single-occupancy vehicle commuting. The university also would maintain these vehicles and provide fuel, either directly or through a reimbursement procedure.
• Childcare/dependent care: WSU would provide bargaining unit members with free childcare on a seven-day-per-week, 24-hour-per-day basis.
• Parking: The university would provide and pay for parking for all employees covered by the contract at university worksites.
• Grievance: In the case of an employee grievance, the issue would go first to the immediate supervisor; then, if not resolved, it would progressively move to the president of the university, to the Board of Regents, then mediation and then arbitration.
• Union activities: Each employee would be granted up to two hours per month leave with pay at the regular rate to attend local union meetings.
WSU contract proposals
After receiving all of the union’s noneconomic proposals, the university began its presentation of proposals to the union including the following:
• Union recognition: WFSE would be the sole and exclusive collective bargaining representative for those individuals covered by a WFSE collective bargaining agreement.
• Nondiscrimination: The university and the union would agree to comply with non-discrimination laws.
• Polygraph testing: The university would agree to not use polygraph examinations/results in any personnel action.
When asked if it was realistic to expect the contract to be completed by Oct. 1, Jubon said, “I think that will depend on how hard WSU is willing to work on their availability to meet.
“At this point, we’ve only tentatively agreed to one article (regarding polygraph testing), and we have given them 62 articles so far. We’ve also agreed to the format for the signature page, but that’s kind of a wrapup detail.”
Jubon said the union has offered to meet on weekdays and weekends dates, but contends that the university has limited meetings to workdays after 5 p.m.
“That’s the single most frustrating thing for me and the membership … They’re not willing to set negotiations during the workday, so we can’t ever get any momentum going and get a full workday in,” said Jubon. “We’d like to see full-day negotiation sessions. That’s normal. That’s doing business.”
However, to do that WFSE also wants the university to provide paid release time to all nine elected union representatives. Previously, WFSE requested 24 hours of paid release time per week through May 31. Then on June 1, release time would increase to 40 hours per week. The university has offered to pay for two hours of release time for seven union representatives at each meeting.
Administrators contend that there is no provision in the WFSE’s union contract for paid release time for purposes related to contract negotiations, and as a result those employees are being paid by the state to be available for their regular work duties.
“The federation took more than three months to provide their 62 articles, and the reason the parties are meeting after 5 p.m. is at the request of the federation. Their proposal to meet at other times is an appropriate topic of discussion for the bargaining table,” said Frye.
“As long as WSU sticks with the current 5 p.m. workday meeting schedule, I don’t see it (the negotiation process) speeding up,” said Jubon. “But, we can’t force them to come to the table.
“My goal is to have the contract completed and ready for the ratification process by the end of August.”
Despite lack of progress in negotiations with the WFSE, DeSoer said he too is hopeful that the two sides could achieve a workable contract before the Oct. 1 deadline.
The parties are scheduled to meet again on May 11.
Contract negotiations with the WSU Police Guild are under way. Ground rules have been agreed to in principle and negotiations are slated to begin on May 25.
Contract negotiations with the International Association of Fire Fighters have been postponed, said DeSoer, as the university is transitioning fire service responsibilities to the City of Pullman.
