Not a Dime - General Government Bargaining Update | Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE)

We didn't come to the negotiating table expecting rainbows and unicorns. We knew negotiations would be tough, and that the budget is incredibly challenging.

But what the Governor's team of negotiators brought to us yesterday wasn't just tough—it was offensive and self-defeating. Apparently, there's not a dime available for your compensation in our 2027-29 contract.

So we're walking out statewide on August 31st, and asking all of our members to send a message to the governor's team.

You can't cut public services to excellence

Download the Walkout Teams/Zoom virtual background and read the rest of the update below for details.

The Definition of Insanity

The state’s financial strategy, both at the bargaining table and in the legislature, is a textbook definition of insanity: repeating the exact same mistakes and expecting a different result.

When Washington forced furloughs and pay cuts on state workers in 2010, the "savings" were an illusion.

Last year our crew addressed thousands of hazard trees in our parks and on our roadways or WSDOT while driving more than 20,000 miles. We shouldn't need two jobs to afford the cost of living. Anyone at OFM who disagrees is welcome to come work a shift. Beowulf Brower - WFSE Member at state parks.

Furloughing staff in agencies heavily backed by federal matching dollars didn't save the state general fund a penny—it literally shut off the valve on millions of federal matching dollars that would have flowed directly into our state.

Delayed disability payments to vulnerable citizens increased the burden on local state-funded safety net programs.

Subpar pay and program cuts -- everything the governor’s team is proposing as a solution -- reduce the state's capacity to bring in revenue, shrink the local tax base, and force agencies to rely on expensive external help, erasing supposed savings.

We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends.

With fewer staff available to do the work, caseloads become unmanageable and create yet another unintended cost for the state: legal liability (not to mention unnecessary suffering).

In the last several years, these avoidable costs have matched the price tag for funding our collective bargaining agreement.

Graph showing over 1 billion in liability costs over the last 5 years

So, when management claims they can’t spend a single dime on the workers who keep this state running, what they mean is they would rather pay out astronomical tort claims to cover up the consequences of their administrative failures than invest those same tax dollars into Washingtonians by safely staffing our agencies.

Meanwhile, construction is actively underway on an estimated $8.6 million project to restore the historic skylights in the House and Senate chambers. That’s $9 million in taxpayer dollars so legislators can sit under soft ambient daylight while the folks who do the work are left in the dark.

I help support five children. With everything constantly going up except wages, I can barely afford to keep food on the table and am racking up credit card debt to pay for basic expenses, even though I’m using all the resources for people in need. I chose this position so that I could do work that was meaningful. We all deserve to be compensated fairly for it. Susan Grentz, WFSE Member, DCYF

Get Our Communities Behind Us

collage of wfse members with supportive businesses

If the public wants to know why state government is taking longer, why food for needy families isn’t getting where it needs to go, they need to look directly at the Governor's team and send them a message.

Again, the fact that there’s not much money isn’t the issue. The issue is what they decide to do with the money they do have. It appears the Governor’s team has chosen to make state employees their lowest priority.

So, we’re going to make sure the public understand what that decision will mean for them and their families.

Politicians of all political stripes like to support small businesses.

But as the largest employer in the state of Washington – larger than Amazon and Boeing – they don’t see a problem with squeezing their workforce until state workers have no discretionary spending.

When state workers spend less, it immediately shrinks the state's intake of sales tax revenue.

How will Washington’s downtowns look when our members – and the tens of thousands of other workers whose pay is tied to what we win at the table – have no money for coffee, to eat out, or go to a movie?

We’re Walking Out on August 31: Stay Tuned for Signup Links

We are not going to sit back and watch public services be run into the ground. We are launching a massive, coordinated escalation campaign to take our message directly to the decision-makers.

Starting immediately, we’re launching a digital letter campaign to the public and all 52,000 WFSE members across all contracts to tell the governor and his team, OFM, and community college and university leadership to come to the table to work out a fair deal.

We’re also going to build on the success of our 2024 walkouts with a statewide walkout – this time inviting the hundreds of small businesses who stand behind us to take part. Stay tuned for details and RSVP links in the coming weeks.

Please help us mobilize our coworkers and highlight and support the local businesses who are standing behind our campaign.

Our next bargaining session is on August 5th. Let’s see if we can get their attention before then.

We know things are tough. But we have something worth fighting for, and we are going to fight for it together.

Let's get to work.

In solidarity,

Your GG Bargaining Team