Weekly Legislative Updates

Legislative Update 7: Priority Bill Update

Patrick Sugrue
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WFSE Local 304 members at North Seattle College organizing against Ferguson's proposed $63m cut to higher education."

The pace of legislative hearings has slowed down, and everyone’s waiting for two things:

  • The economic forecast on March 18

Which will tell us how bad the budget shortfall is — are we’re dealing with a $12 billion shortfall, as projected, or more?

  • The House and Senate budgets coming out the week of March 24

Which will tell us how our elected officials plan to deal with the shortfall: how much do they want to cut, and how much do they want to demand from the very richest in our state?

Between now and then, we need to push our elected officials to reject furloughs, minimize cuts, and demand the rich pay their fair share.

→ Write your elected official an email here speaking out against furloughs, or

→ Call the Legislative Hotline at 888-258-4588 (bigger impact than emails)

  • Tell them you're calling about House Bill 1198 and Senate Bill 5167 (these are the two operating budget bills).
  • Tell them you want your elected officials to: reject furloughs and budget cuts and tax the rich.
  • For more details and talking points text STAND to 237-263.
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Upcoming Hearings to Sign in On

Find video interviews, upcoming personal events, and more on our landing page.

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Status of WFSE Priority Bills

Nine out of ten bills introduced in the legislature never make it to the governor’s desk for a signature. Too many bills, too little time.

Every year lots of good, sensible legislation is put on the back burner to be picked by its advocates during the next legislative session.

House Bill 1182 certainly fits that description. Our State Parks Local 1466 members, led by president Alicia Burki (above), fought for the bill which would have given Parks members interest arbitration rights during negotiations. It didn’t make it through the fiscal cutoff on February 28, but we'll be back fighting for it next year.

WFSE’s AI Bargaining Bill Marches On

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House Bill 1622, our AI collective bargaining bill, passed the House in the face of frantic lobbying by Microsoft and other large organizations who don't want workers to have a voice in how our workplaces are run.

We leaned on our community of organized labor to help it through, but it really was a WFSE win – our members testified before committees, called, emailed and our WFSE Legislative and Political Action Team was basically living at the capitol to educate our elected officials about the bill.

It’s going to get harder now that it’s in the Senate so let your Senator know you support it!

Movement of other Priority Bills

House Bill 1822, a bill to add work zone safety to driver’s education courses and protect our WSDOT members. It passed the House and is now in the Senate.

House Bill 1105, a bill to create a stand-alone union contract for WFSE members who work at the Department of Corrections. Passed the House and is now in the Senate.

We continue to organize against Senate Bill 5393, the bill that would close Rainier School and Yakima Valley School. Hundreds of members have sent emails to their elected officials, made calls and more. A rally is now scheduled April 10 in support of both facilities. RSVP and take other actions below.

Find more in our legislative update from last week here.

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Want more?

Find all of our priority bills, updates from previous weeks, and more on our landing page here.

If you're not following your union on social media, check us out here.