Category: labor

Health, King County, labor

County Councilmember Says Ex-Employees Who Refuse to Vaccinate Should Get Their Old Jobs Back
King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn

By Erica C. Barnett

Last week, King County Councilmember Reagan Dunn proposed a resolution urging King County Executive Dow Constantine to “quickly re-hire” the 281 King County employees who lost their jobs because they refused to get the COVID vaccine. Speaking at a council meeting last Wednesday, Dunn said his resolution would help the county fill “a lot of employee vacancies, both in the sheriff’s department and the jail and other areas of the county.”

All of the fired employees were ruled ineligible for the county’s religious exemption, which allowed people to claim that the vaccine was against their religion. Under the county’s current rules, the fired employees have the right to be rehired to their previous jobs as long as they remain eligible and their job classification still exists.

County Councilmember Claudia Balducci noted that in nearly 40 minutes of self-pitying comments from former employees, “I didn’t hear one word about our commitment to the people we serve and keeping them safe.

Among other reasons, sheriff’s deputies claimed that they shouldn’t have to be vaccinated because the vaccine uses fibroblast cells that originated with fetal cells  derived from two fetuses in the 1960s. “All of the available vaccines at the time [of the terminations] were created with aborted fetal tissue,” Enumclaw-based officer Jason Brunner declared, inaccurately. “Because I believe that all children are innocent and precious in the eyes of God. I couldn’t very well put that vaccine into my body when I am vehemently against the the abortion aspect. As such, I was persecuted, along with my brothers and sisters, for our sincerely held religious beliefs.”

As KING-5 reported in 2021, almost every Christian denomination, including the Catholic Church, allows vaccines, including the COVID-19 vaccine.

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Because King County no longer has a vaccine mandate, the fired employees are eligible to re-apply for their former positions. Former sheriff’s deputies who spoke during public comment last week argued this process was insulting and “frightening” because they would have to go through a probationary period as new hires. They also demanded back pay for the time they have not been employed by the county. Of about 25 members of the King County Police Officer’s Guild who were terminated because of the mandate, only 12 have expressed an interest in returning, a county staffer confirmed during the meeting—4.7 percent of the 252 vacancies at the sheriff’s department.

Source: King County COVID data dashboard=

County Councilmember Claudia Balducci pointed out in a Twitter thread that the county’s labor unions are already in negotiations that will result in rehiring many employees who lost their jobs because they didn’t want to protect themselves and others against COVID-19. On Wednesday, Balducci noted that in nearly 40 minutes of self-pitying comments from former employees, “I didn’t hear one word about our commitment to the people we serve and keeping them safe. I heard only about the impact on the employees. We are here with a mission, and our mission is to serve the public.”

To Balducci’s point: The COVID vaccine saves lives and has prevented many cases of severe COVID. And COVID continues to kill even as government entities treat their own decisions to require vaccines like an ill-conceived, fear-driven folly.

About 85 percent of King County residents received an initial two-dose vaccine, but only a third are fully vaccinated. Those who aren’t fully vaccinated are far more likely to die or be hospitalized from COVID, according to the county’s COVID data dashboard. Since the date when King County implemented its vaccine mandate, more than 7,700 King County residents have been hospitalized for COVID, and more than 1,400 have died. Three-quarters of the people in both of these groups were not fully vaccinated against the disease. Since the end of the county’s vaccine mandate in February of this year, 91 people have died of COVID countywide; about three-quarters of that group were not fully vaccinated.

homelessness, human services, labor

Union Says Homelessness Agency Has Failed to Negotiate Over Wages, Workplace Safety

By Erica C. Barnett

Unionized staff at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority say the homelessness authority has failed to come to the bargaining table to negotiate their first contract, canceling five out of eight scheduled bargaining sessions and refusing to discuss proposals for increased wages amid a “toxic work environment” that has driven at least 17 people to leave the agency, which recently surpassed 100 employees, since 2021.

According to a letter to the KCRHA’s governing and implementation board members from the Professional and Technical Employees Local 17 (PROTEC17), the workers—who unionized almost exactly a year ago—provided a draft contract to the agency earlier this year, but the union’s “calls for support and offers to negotiate at the bargaining table have largely gone unmet.” In March, the union filed an Unfair Labor Practice with the state Public Employee Relations Commission for refusal to bargain; four of the five cancellations occurred after that filing.

“Although we are heartened by KCRHA’s response to our proposals at the June 15th bargaining session, this negotiation lacked any response or timeline for addressing our economic proposals, the letter to the agency’s governing and implementation boards says.

The union sent a similar letter to interim director Helen Howell this morning.

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According to a source familiar with the negotiations, the KCRHA did not want to discuss cost of living adjustments, wage classifications, or other economic issues, and suggested that the agency has little control over what it can pay employees because its funding comes from outside sources—chiefly the city of Seattle and King County.

“If not addressed soon, this could develop into an additional failure to negotiate. This lack of interaction with our union not only undermines the rights and well-being of the staff but also erodes trust within the organization,” the letter continues. 

Earlier this year, the KCRHA reportedly gave staffers a 3 percent cost of living adjustment, without notifying the union or negotiating the increase, which is below the rate of inflation.

The KCRHA has not responded to a list of questions PubliCola sent on Wednesday morning, including a request for confirmation of the 3 percent COLA. We will update this post if they respond.

“It is disheartening to witness the immense potential of the KCRHA that brought staff to the organization being squandered due to ineffective leadership.”

The union also raised questions about the safety of the KCRHA’s system advocates—outreach workers with lived experience of homelessness—who go into encampments and other potentially dangerous situations to identify and follow up with clients in downtown Seattle. The system advocates were the brainchild of former agency CEO Marc Dones, and are funded through a public-private partnership with local companies and private philanthropic groups.

According to the letter, KCRHA leadership “targeted and retaliated against” one of the co-directors of the systems advocates, “for raising still unresolved safety concerns for our Systems Advocate workforce.” Earlier this year, after that co-director was terminated, organizers posted an online petition demanding safer working conditions for system advocates, including safety equipment and information about hazards that may be present at encampments.  

As we’ve reported, the KCRHA has had trouble hiring for a number of vacant positions, including grants and contract staffers who verify contracts and make sure hundreds of agencies who receive funding through the KCRHA get paid.

“Projects and initiatives are delayed across the organization, including Partnership for Zero and contracting (which have been directly impacted by employee turnover),” the letter to the two boards says. “It is disheartening to witness the immense potential of the KCRHA that brought staff to the organization being squandered due to ineffective leadership.”

labor, Mayor Harrell

Essential Workers Protest Harrell’s “Insulting” 1 Percent Pay Increase Offer
Ed Hill, a 30-year veteran of Seattle City Light, shows his “essential worker” badge

By Erica C. Barnett

City Light electricians, Parks Department construction workers, librarians, and other city employees unfurled a 50-foot-long petition down a flight of steps inside the lobby of City Hall yesterday to demonstrate their opposition to a proposed 1 percent “cost of living adjustment” Mayor Bruce Harrell’s labor negotiators proposed earlier this year. The petition included signatures from nearly 6,000 people in support of the Coalition of City Union’s efforts to improve the unions’ contract.

Members of the 11 unions that make up the Coalition of City Unions—which, collectively, represent about 6,000 city workers—expressed disappointment and outrage about the Harrell Administration’s proposal, which would boost these workers’ wages just 1 percent in 2024, and a maximum of 2.5 percent over the next four years. According to the Professional and Technical Workers Coalition, the largest union in the Coalition, Harrell’s office recently offered additional wage increases for people in a “small handful” of job classifications, along with additional vacation time—contingent on the union accepting the 1 percent COLA.

In contrast salaries for rookie police officers quickly rise to six figures, not counting overtime, over a new recruit’s first four years, and that amount will increase again after the city concludes contract negotiations with the police union, which are ongoing now. The city also offers police hiring bonuses of up to $30,000.

One percent, many workers told me Tuesday, is far less than the rate of inflation, which topped 8 percent in Seattle last year. Ed Hill, an electrical construction and maintenance supervisor who has worked for Seattle City light almost 30 years, said that for him, a 1 percent pay boost “is just like 0 percent. That puts me, actually, going backwards. Because everything else is going up everything except my wages.”

Hill said he had high hopes for the negotiations when Harrell showed up for an initial meeting with union negotiators and told them “this was going to be a collaborative process… a nice, easy process. And the whole thing—well, it just hasn’t turned out to be that.”

Joan Estes, another electrical construction and maintenance supervisor who rose through the ranks at City Light, said she took a supervisory job on the assumption that it would be a better career path than her previous job as a City Light electrician. Instead, she said,  “I’m making less now than the job I came from.” On top of that, Estes said, City Light is seeing an increase in wage compression, as the wages of lower-ranked workers, who are represented by a different union, close in on what higher-ranking employees earn. In its most recent contract, IBEW 77, which represents City Light line workers and electricians, negotiated a cost of living adjustment up to 4 percent along with one-time wage increases of 10 percent.

Hill, Estes, and many other workers at Tuesday’s event wore city ID cards bearing a red “ESSENTIAL WORKER” badge—an early-pandemic designation for city employees who didn’t have the option of working from home. Marvin Christianson, a carpenter for the Parks and Recreation department who worked “straight on through” the pandemic, called the 1 percent offer “insulting.”

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“We’ve been told over and over again that we’re the best-funded parts department in the nation, and we’re going, why is our work underpaid—so far underpaid that we have recruitment and retention problems?” Christianson said.

Anne Cisney, a librarian at the Central (downtown) Seattle Public Library, said library workers have become an part of the support system for people experiencing homelessness, mental health issues, and addiction, including people in crisis who lash out at library staff.  “And in that environment, to hear from the city that our wages will not even keep pace with inflation, that’s a very hard thing to hear,” Cisney said. “And it leaves us feeling unsupported, devalued and disrespected by the city that we’re working so hard to support. So that’s why such an overwhelming number of library workers feel strongly about this issue.”

Brianna Thomas, Harrell’s labor liaison, came down from the mayor’s office to receive a printed-out version of the petition, but noted several times, “I’m not the negotiator!” Harrell’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the issues the union members raised on Wednesday afternoon.

labor, Mayor Harrell

Unions Protest City’s “Insulting” 1 Percent Wage Increase Proposal

By Erica C. Barnett

The Coalition of City Unions, an umbrella group for 11 unions that represent more than 6,000 city employees, is protesting what they call an “insulting” contract proposal from the city, which would raise workers’ wages just 1 percent in 2024, and a maximum of 2.5 percent over the next four years. That’s far less than the rate of inflation, which topped 8 percent in Seattle last year, with higher price increases for basics like groceries (11.3 percent) and housing (10.7 percent).

As a point of comparison, Seattle police officers received a 17 percent pay increase after their last contract negotiation, with retroactive pay increases between 3 and 4 percent a year for the years they worked without a contract. The city council approved hiring bonuses of up to $30,000 for police last year. More recently, city attorney Ann Davison applauded the council and mayor for voting to increase city prosecutors’ pay by 20 percent, saying the boost would “allow us to recruit and hire in order to fully staff our prosecutor positions in the Criminal Division.”

The unions made their initial proposal—a 10.2 percent pay increase—last September. The city came back with its own proposal six months later, three months after the 2022 contracts expired. Union members say they were disappointed by the long period of silence from Mayor Bruce Harrell and his negotiators, and appalled by the lowball counteroffer—especially after Harrell and other city leaders professed their appreciation for essential workers who didn’t have the option to work from home during the pandemic.

Stefan Schmidt, a recreation center coordinator with the Parks and Recreation Department, helped coordinate and run child care centers for pandemic first responders, a job that exposed him to the risk of COVID and meant he couldn’t come into close contact with family members during the early months of the pandemic.

“The impression [Harrell] gave was, this is going to be cooperative, and we’re all going to work together and we’ll come out with something that’s beneficial for both of us,” said Ed Hill, a maintenance supervisor with Seattle City Light. “And when that 1 percent [offer] came out—I mean, it was very, very insulting.”

After working all day at a community center that also provided showers to the public, “I couldn’t come home and hug my dad,” Schmidt said. “And so when we got a 1 percent offer, after being kind of used as the fix-it for just about everything in the pandemic—which, don’t get me wrong, we deeply care about the community—it was just really insulting and felt consistent with feeling used as as a staff member and not appreciated.”

Shomari Anderson, a drainage engineer with the city’s Department of Construction and Inspections, has felt the pinch of higher prices for everything from groceries to housing. Recently, after living in Seattle for 13 years, he had to move because he couldn’t afford to live in the city anymore. Seeing the latest contract offer, he said, “I felt as if the mayor and the City Council’s record of supporting essential workers through the pandemic went out the window.”

Aimee Kimball, an engineer at Seattle City Light, said she’s had trouble finding qualified engineers who are willing to work for what the city pays, given the high cost of living in the region. “The last time we put out a posting for two senior engineers, 50 percent of the candidate pool didn’t even have an engineering degree. The rest of them still weren’t qualified, but half of them didn’t even have college degree,” she said.

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At the beginning of contract negotiations in September, Mayor Harrell showed up in person to address city union members directly and express his commitment to a collaborative, positive negotiating experience—the first time union leaders can recall a mayor doing so. City employees said Harrell’s gesture of goodwill gave them hope that the city would come back with an offer that reflected the rising cost of living and showed an appreciation for their work over the last few stressful years.

“The impression [Harrell] gave was, this is going to be cooperative, and we’re all going to work together and we’ll come out with something that’s beneficial for both of us,” said Ed Hill, a maintenance supervisor with Seattle City Light. “And when that 1 percent [offer] came out—I mean, it was very, very insulting.” Hill’s team was responsible for “literally keeping the lights on” during the pandemic—a job that became more difficult when more people were at home, putting stress on the system.

“We basically carried the city through the pandemic, and now they just throw 1 percent at us with the attitude that we should be happy that we’re getting anything… like anything over zero is a gain,” Hill said. “But the price of gas has gone up. The price of food has gone up. We still have to eat. I still have to drive to work every day. I still have to feed my myself and my family.”

A spokesman for Harrell’s office declined to comment on the contract proposals, citing ongoing labor negotiations.

The Coalition of City Unions has created an online petition calling on the city council and Harrell to “act with the necessary urgency to provide a fair contract that shows tangible respect for workers.” The petition currently has about 4,200 signatures.

Catriana Hernandez, a 911 dispatcher, says she’ll believe the city appreciates essential workers like her when she sees a contract proposal that includes to a pay increase, not an effective pay cut. “It’s really easy to thank someone verbally and not follow through. Gratitude is like apologies. … I think it’s easy to say it, and it’s harder to make it happen. And that’s where we see if we’re actually appreciated.”

Affordability, Elections, Guest Contributor, housing, labor

Guest Editorial: City Employees Need Social Housing
Image via City of Seattle.

By Karen Estevenin, Executive Director, PROTEC17

Collective action is the heart of the labor movement. As a public sector union, PROTEC17 members work together to improve conditions at our own workplaces. What is often lost in the public understanding of unions is how we also strive to improve the communities where we live.

The inadequate and shrinking supply of affordable housing in our region has become a crisis. That’s why our union, along with a number of coalition partners, is supporting Initiative I-135, which would create a public developer to build and acquire permanently affordable social housing in Seattle.

During the 2010s, Seattle saw some of the highest rent increases in the country, with an average rent increase of more than 90 percent. Between 2021 and 2022 alone, rent increases approached 20 percent per year between 2021 and 2022. The current median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Seattle is $1,895, an amount that prices many Seattleites out of their own neighborhoods.

PROTEC17 represents the largest number of union workers at the City of Seattle. Through mobilization, negotiating strong contracts, and workplace wins, union members’ ability to create positive change undoubtedly fosters a better workplace and livelihood for themselves and their colleagues. However, with the rising cost of living and housing in Seattle, it is increasingly difficult to raise city employees’ compensation to fit the realities of living in Seattle. The simple fact is that too many city employees cannot afford to live in the very city they support, shape, and serve.

It is in this context that I-135, the social housing initiative, offers a proactive, transparent, and inclusive pathway to the development of truly affordable housing in the city of Seattle. I-135 does this by creating a Public Development Authority that will enable the city of Seattle to acquire properties, renovate existing housing, and build affordable homes, removing the pressure for profits and allowing more collective and collaborative management. The authority itself will be directed by a public oversight board composed of renters, union members, experts in affordable and green development, as well as City Council and Mayoral appointees. It is collective action in action and as an ongoing model.

Housing created by the authority would include units to fit a mix of household sizes, as well as units that are affordable to a cross section of tenants—from those with extremely low incomes to those making up to 120% of Seattle’s median income. If passed, the tools provided by I-135 will be a critical component to restoring and maintaining living communities that cross incomes, ages, and backgrounds.

For these reasons, and many more, a broad range of community, labor, and small business partners have come together to support I-135.  Join us in this collective action and vote YES on I-135. Let’s give our city the opportunity to create affordable housing by and for the people.

Karen Estevenin is the executive director of PROTEC17, a member-powered labor union representing nearly 10,000 public employee professionals across the Pacific Northwest. PROTEC17 members work in city, county, and state government, public health, and beyond to support the programs and services that our communities rely on everyday.

Drugs, labor, legislature

Legislators May Prescribe Treatment for Drug Possession; More Legislative Staffers Unionize

1. One of the biggest conflicts in this year’s legislative session will be over how to replace a temporary drug possession law passed in 2021 in response to the a decision called Blake v. State of Washington, in which the state supreme court ruled that an existing law banning drug possession was unconstitutional because it criminalized “unknowing” as well as knowing drug possession.

The interim law, which expires in July, shifted most drug possession from a class C felony to a simple misdemeanor and required police to refer people people to treatment or other services for the first two offenses. Democrats have introduced three competing replacement bills that range from increasing criminal penalties for drug possession to decriminalization.

Last week, Sen. Manka Dhingra (D-45, Redmond), who chairs the Law & Justice committee, introduced a bill that largely decriminalizes possession of “personal amounts” of drugs. The legislation leans heavily on the recommendations of the Substance Use Recovery Services Advisory Committee (SURSAC), which was established in the interim bill and issued a report in December. The committee recommended decriminalizing possession of small amounts of drugs—similar to laws recently passed in Oregon and British Columbia—as well as exploring the creation of safe supply system, which would create a regulated, medical-grade supply of controlled substances to drug users. A solid body of academic research supports safe supply as a key to preventing overdose deaths.

However, Sen. Dhingra has acknowledged her bill doesn’t have the votes to pass in the Senate, telling PubliCola,  “Even if the policy [the SURSAC committee] designed doesn’t have the votes in the legislature, it’s important that their recommendations are represented in the debates as the legislature moves forward.”

Sen Jesse Salomon (D-32, Shoreline) has introduced a bill backed by a handful of Democrats and Republicans that would re-criminalize drug possession (addressing the issue raised in Blake by adding the word “knowingly” to existing law); increase penalties for drug possession’ and mandate treatment.

But the bill that seems most likely to emerge from committee is one sponsored by Sen. June Robinson (D-38, Everett), which reinstates the 2021 law but encourages participation in pre-trial diversion, including treatment, as an alternative to criminal penalties. 

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2. Earlier this month, the state Public Employee Relations Commission ruled that a group of deputy city clerks and strategic advisors in the city’s legislative department could join the Professional and Technical Employees Local 17 (PROTEC17) bargaining unit, which also represents employees of the city council’s Central Staff, the city archivist, and the City Auditor.

Not everyone at the clerk’s office supported unionizing. The office is a motley group of employees who do very different kinds of jobs, under very different daily working conditions; they include IT professionals, staffers who read and decipher legislation on the fly during council meetings, and aides who deal directly with the public.

It’s unclear which issues the union will help employees of the clerk’s office tackle, but there are plenty of possibilities. Unlike employees in some city departments, many of those in the clerk’s office have had to return to (or remain at) their desks at City Hall, regardless of whether their job is public-facing or something that could be done from home. Some employees have job titles that don’t obviously correspond to their actual duties, resulting in lower pay than if they had a different job classification—a frequent complaint in many city departments. Workers with HR complaints have recourse to an ombudsperson, but their jobs are at-will and their ultimate boss is the city council president, a rotating position that’s currently filled by Debora Juarez.

Although it’s somewhat unusual for white-collar city workers, including many in highly compensated strategic advisor jobs, to unionize, there is a precedent in the legislative department: The clerk’s office is following in the footsteps the council’s central staff, who joined Protec17 in 2019.

—Andrew Engelson, Erica C. Barnett