If you're worried about the pending budget shortfall, here's what you need to know.
We’ve known about the budget crunch since June, and here’s the good news. We’re ahead of the game.
Our members have already taken two crucial steps to limit how the downturn will affect the 52,000 public workers our union represents:
#1. We’ve already won an agreement from our employers to give us a 5% raise over the next two years.
This is no small feat when the negative budget projections came out right when we started negotiations. Our employers didn’t want to spend a dime, and in some cases were pushing for pay cuts, citing the decline in state revenue.
We had to walk out by the thousands, but we won a commitment from the state not to balance the budget on our backs. Now, we just have to lobby the legislature to fund our contracts starting this January.
#2. This November, we defeated 3 billionaire-backed, anti-worker initiatives that would have nearly doubled the budget crisis.
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- I-2117 would have cut our members’ jobs at the Department of Ecology, drained billions from the budget that funds all of our jobs, and made the rest of us foot the bill for corporations’ toxic pollution.
- I-2824 would have dismantled the new long term care insurance benefit, the Washington Cares Fund, for the benefit of for profit insurance companies.
- And I-2109 was a tax cut for the richest 4,000 households in Washington — literally, just for them. And that lost revenue also would have come out of the General Fund, which funds all the work we do to keep Washington running.
The moment our Executive Board members heard they’d gained the signatures needed to get to the ballot, they voted to commit significant resources to defeat them.
Now We Must Lock in Funding for Our Contracts and Protect WA’s Safety Net
Our contracts have been determined financially feasible by the Office of Financial Management, which is a big deal in this fiscal environment.
Now we just need to convince the legislature to vote to fund our raises during the 2025 legislative session, which begins on January 13! Learn more about WFSE lobby days here.
But our work is not done.
As always, we’ll need to defend vital residential habilitation centers like Yakima Valley School and Rainier School from serious cuts. And we’ll need to advocate for our members jobs in the Department of Corrections. Separate communications and action items will be sent to our members there once they’ve been developed.
This is what lobby days are all about — bringing our members directly to their legislators to explain the importance of the work they do.
