By Tim Welch
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation, or “The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight” as they’re referred to by those who know them, has shot themselves in the foot yet again in their Saturday guest commentary in The Herald.
The EFF attacks the Washington Federation of State Employees for exercising its First Amendment rights to participate in the political process along with the Building Industry Association of Washington and other membership-based organizations. But the EFF’s crack researchers apparently don’t even know which groups of state employees the WFSE represents. We do not represent or bargain for any of the groups the EFF listed in their guest commentary. Apparently the EFF hasn’t heard of the Internet. We’ll help them out. We do represent and bargain for 30,000 state employees in general government, from the transportation workers who keep our passes clear to those caring for vulnerable children and adults to those caring for our environment and worker safety, among many others. We also represent 10,000 non-faculty higher education employees at 12 community colleges and all four-year institutions.
But EFF’s grasp of the facts has never been good. If the facts don’t fit the narrow viewpoints of the fringe groups that financially support them, then they bend the truth. Talk about secrecy. Readers should ask the EFF to list the big money interests behind them. Try even finding the EFF’s offices in Olympia. The WFSE has its name in big, bold letters above its front door. The EFF directs you to a post office box. And why does the EFF think they need to carry the BIAW’s water? On their side of the political spectrum, the BIAW is Godzilla. The EFF is Bambi.
The EFF’s charge of an inappropriate veil of secrecy over current contract talks is bogus — and they should know it. Perhaps their crack analysts should look at the collective bargaining law passed by a bipartisan majority of the state House and Senate in 2002. That law created a joint, bipartisan legislative committee to consult with the governor’s office during and after negotiations. Why? Because lawmakers will have to vote up or down on whether to fund the contracts’ provisions on pay and benefits. But this is a fact the EFF doesn’t like to admit. They also like to attack WFSE’s hard-working members for alleged secrecy. Yet they fail to tell the public that WFSE had no problem with the EFF gaining access to the state’s official bargaining notes from the last round of negotiations. Others objected; we did not.
The EFF frequently proclaims that state government should be run more like a business. But when it comes to bargaining, they continue to shoot and miss again and again.
The truth is, the state, like any large employer, negotiates hundreds of issues big and small with its employees, some complicated and many intertwined with other contract articles. There needs to be open, bilateral negotiations, not a media circus to satisfy the likes of the EFF.
And when an agreement is reached, there is full public disclosure as required by law so lawmakers can debate whether the contracts are economically feasible.
Negotiators at the table don’t decide that issue. The governor doesn’t decide that issue. The WFSE doesn’t decide that issue. The EFF doesn’t decide that issue. The people’s representatives, the elected members of the state House and Senate, decide what is financially responsible or not. If the Legislature approves, lawmakers still have a huge safety valve; if the economy tanks and revenue drops significantly, legislators can order re-negotiation of contracts’ economic terms.
That’s called democracy — another fact the EFF apparently has trouble grasping.
Tim Welch is director of public affairs for the Washington Federation of State Employees.
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