return to all General Government bargaining updates
Member action is working – the state negotiator admitted as much in negotiations yesterday– but we need to keep pushing to get where we need to be. Learn more about our September 10 walkouts (77 worksites and counting) in this release and the importance of joining in person. Jump to details about the walkouts here.
Yesterday, your General Government bargaining team met with the Office of Financial Management for the 9th time.
We worked for 14 hours, wrapping up around 10:30 pm.
Throughout the day we responded to the employer’s compensation proposals and made the difficult decisions as a team about where to stand strong and where to move.
In one instance, we called up a member from the Department of Natural Resources to ensure what we were sending back to management matched the intent of his contract proposal. (We really do read all contract proposals, folks. If you have an idea for our next contract, click here.)
We Respond to Data, Management Responds to Public Pressure
Movement is the essence of the bargaining process. At the outset each side states their positions, and throughout negotiations we work towards one another until we agree and have a tentative agreement.
What the final contract looks like – and how close it is to our original position or the employer’s – depends.
As a bargaining team, we adjust our positions in response to data and objective facts.
When the budget projections soured in June, we identified positions we could move on so we could focus on other areas that our members identified as priorities in the bargaining survey. There’s simply less money to negotiate for than in previous cycles.
When we’ve received data from a Request for Information and it didn’t paint the picture we expected, we’ve de-prioritized certain contract priorities.
OFM and the Governor have access to all the information we do:
- Dangerous recruitment and retention problems, crushing workloads, and a work environment that approximately half of all employees say they are seeking to leave.
- In the last two years, 25% of the state workforce has turned over and been replaced by new, untrained workers.
- In the last eight years, 40% of the workforce has turned over due to resignations alone.
- Over the last 10 years, state workers have more than 1 million new residents to serve.
- The number of Washingtonians we’re expected to serve is forecasted to increase by 240,000 during the life of this next contract.
- Two of the top reasons people are leaving state government are pay and organizational leadership.
The State is Moving: YOUR Pressure is Working
What OFM and the Governor respond to is member action and public pressure, not the data.
All of your actions in your worksites, your phone calls, your emails are having a real impact on which demands OFM will agree to and how much ground they’ll give.
The lead negotiator for the state all but admitted yesterday during bargaining that recent pressure has caused the state to reevaluate their bottom line.
Let’s keep pushing: RSVP for a Walkout September 10
We’ve made ground, but we’re still not where we need to be. RSVP for a walkout here.
Already registered? Use this flyer to drive turnout and encourage fellow local members to register to lead a walkout. You can see all items from our Walkout for Washington Toolkit here, as well as Teams backgrounds and digital items.
To get there, we need to get our communities, the wider public, and the media involved. That’s what OFM and the Governor respond to.
Your numbers in our statewide walkouts on September 10 are what will make the difference.
Find Your Worksite or Register for a Nearby Worksite
To show our strength, we need as many members joining an in-person walkout as possible.
If you work remotely on the 10th, or every day, find the nearest walkout to you and register. It doesn’t matter what agency the walkout is at. You’ll be meeting fellow WFSE members at the assembly area identified in the RSVP link.
We can’t stress the importance of this enough: if you are able, join an in-person walkout.
A huge portion of our members began working remotely following the pandemic. If everyone who works remote takes a digital action, or joins a Zoom meeting, we’ll be leaving a lot of our power on the table and we won’t send the message we need to send.
Get involved here! New walkouts are being added daily. As of this writing, 77 worksites are walking out!
In solidarity,
Your General Government Bargaining Team
