OLYMPIA — The Legislature’s move to allow state workers to bargain for higher pay has prompted the biggest boom in state employee union organizing in decades, state and union officials say.
The Washington Federation of State Employees, the largest of the state employee unions, has grown more than 20 percent since 2002.
After three years of frozen wages and increasing health care costs, employees are joining unions in hope that increased clout will mean a better deal come July 1, 2005, when the law passed two years ago mandates a new contract.
While union membership elsewhere in the country dwindles, Washington’s unionized workforce is growing.
"That was largely due to public sector organizing, we think," David Groves, a spokesman for the Washington State Labor Council, told The Olympian.
The council’s member unions — including the Washington Federation of State Employees, Washington Public Employees Association and the Service Employees International Local 925 — represent 430,000 workers.
The new law dictates that state employees negotiate with the governor over pay and benefits, which have historically been set unilaterally by the Legislature.
"The reasoning is, the more people they have under representation, the more powerful they’ll be at the bargaining table," Groves said.
The federation, which represents about 40,000 public employees in the state, brought in as many as 25 new organizers, said Caroline Klinglesmith, the union’s organizing director.
This month, 430 employees of the state parks department switched to the federation from the WPEA.
Ranger Don Hall led the campaign for the switch after budget cuts forced him to move and the WPEA aligned itself with a national organization for food and commercial workers
"Many of us were leery of how that process went," said Hall, who now works at Potlatch State Park on Hood Canal. "So when organizers started coming around, I said I’d definitely be supporting them."
While the federation’s size and clout appealed to Hall, not everyone thinks size alone will help win a better deal.
The WPEA recently won over classified workers at Bellevue Community College and 130 employees of the Washington State Lottery.
"It’s smaller and we felt we’d get better representation," said Donna Bartley, whose Lottery job includes making sure retail stores throughout the state have enough game tickets.
"There’s been a lot of competition, at least between us and the federation," said Leslie Liddle, WPEA’s executive director. "We all offer something a little different."
The federation has added 6,893 new state workers to its rolls in two years, Executive Director Greg Devereux said.
Meanwhile, SEIU Local 925, the second-largest union of state employees, has added about 2,000 workers for a total of 11,000, said Kim Cook, its president. WPEA’s numbers are little changed at 5,000.
In 2003, U.S. union membership fell to 12.9 percent of the work force, compared with 13.3 percent a year earlier, as companies slashed jobs, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In Washington, however, union membership rose to 19.7 percent of all workers, from 18.5 percent in 2002.
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