By Erica C. Barnett
Nearly 1,200 city employees represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which includes the line workers, tree trimmers, electricians, and other workers at Seattle City Light, won’t get their approved raises and retroactive pay until November at the earliest, even though the city approved their most recent contract in June. The contract covers the years 2023 through 2026, so the city owes these workers retroactive pay increases for 2023 and 2024, in addition to wage increases going forward.
The city is blaming the implementation of Workday, a new payroll and HR management system, for the delay. If this sounds familiar, that’s because the city gave the exact same explanation for delaying wage increases for about 7,000 city employees covered by the Coalition of City Unions (CCU), whose own contracts were approved in April.
The city’s plan was to hold on to the money for those workers’ pay increases until October, when the city then said Workday would be fully implemented and stable, but union members pushed back (and PubliCola stayed on the story), and the city decided it could get their checks out the door before Workday implementation after all.
According to the city, the reason Local 77 employees will have to wait until the end of 2024 for their 2023 and 2024 raises is that their contract was approved months after the Coalition contracts, making it impossible to plug the pay changes into Workday before it goes live in the fall.
“The Workday project was closed to any additional configuration changes by the time the IBEW contract was ratified, and therefore could not be implemented prior to go-live,” said Callie Craighead, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bruce Harrell. “It is a standard best practice for software projects in the final phase of implementation to hold on further configuration changes prior to go-live as we want to ensure City employees are paid correctly. Once Workday is live and the system is through the initial stabilization period, the City will implement outstanding ratified agreements.”
But the union isn’t buying that explanation. In a July 3 letter to Harrell and the City Council, IBEW 77 Business Representative Steve Kovac said it was “beyond comprehension” that the city found a way to implement pay increases for most of its employees, but not IBEW-represented workers.
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“It was explained to me that payroll management reported that ‘it’s just too hard’ to pay the increases and retro prior to implementing Workday,” Kovac wrote. “I hope this isn’t the new mantra for the City. Our members don’t have the option of saying they won’t do their job because ‘it’s just too hard.'” Kovac told PubliCola the contract was actually ready to go last year, but the city’s labor relations division kept delaying negotiations, citing the need for new members of the city’s Labor Relations Policy Committee, which includes three brand-new council members, to get up to speed.
Kovac said no one at the mayor’s office or any city council office has responded to the union’s letter.
“These are people who haven’t had a pay raise in two years. They dealt with double-digit inflation in those two years, and the city doesn’t seem to care,” Kovac said. The union has filed an Unfair Labor Practice complaint against the city over the delays, along with grievances for discrimination against the city for not following the terms of the contract. “It says ‘full force and effect,’ and it says … that payroll errors will be fixed within two pay periods. As far as I’m concerned, not paying our raises is a payroll error.”
The new contract includes retroactive pay increases of 5 percent and 4.5 percent for 2023 and 2024, respectively; compounded, that’s almost 10 percent. Starting in 2025, workers’ pay increases will be based on inflation and set at a minimum of 2 percent and a maximum of 4 percent.
One worker represented by the union, who requested anonymity, said she has been unable to pay her mortgage and had to stop paying union dues because she had made financial decisions—including buying a house—based on the understanding that her raise, which will add up to about $7.50 an hour starting next year, would go through once the city approved the new contract. Now, she’s wondering how she’ll be able to pay her expenses while she waits several more months for her raise, and retroactive pay for 2023 and 2024, to take effect.
“This is not something new,” she said. “It certainly is something that they knew they were planning for. If our contract expired at the end of 2022, then you’ve known that you’re going to have to give retroactive wages since 2022. This is not a surprise.”
“I don’t think the city realizes how much this is having a real effect on our finances and our wellbeing,” the employee said.
The city sets aside money to pay for retroactive and future wage increases well in advance, Kovac noted. “That money goes into an account and makes interest, and we don’t get any interest.” PubliCola has asked the city whether funds for future wage increases are invested in interest-bearing accounts, and if so, what kind.
Craighead, from the mayor’s office, said Workday is expected to launch in September. Problems with Workday delayed hundreds of research grants at the University of Washington earlier this year, and employees for the city of Los Angeles have been dealing with under- and overpayments for months after the city implemented Workday, at about double its initial price tag, earlier this year.
