New Positions Created Since January 2009 (19 July 2010)

As we prepared to bargain the impacts of the furlough plan recently adopted by WDFW Management, the WAFWP Executive Board submitted a request to agency management for information on newly created positions and any salary increases provided to WDFW employees since January 2009. The agency sent us a series of PDF documents in response. The following is a summary of these documents.

Since January 2009, 120 new positions have been created. Of these, 82 are non-permanent, 27 are permanent, 10 are project positions, and 1 is a seasonal position. WAFWP represents 14 of these new positions, WFSE represents 18, and 88 are non-represented. The number of positions created varies by title (Table 1).

Table 1. The number of new positions created within WDFW since January 2009.

Salary increases granted since January 2009, were based on promotional opportunities (n=45) and position reallocations (n=18). The average annual salary increase for promotions was $5,589 (range: $9 - 23,016), while the average annual salary increase for reallocations was $4,081 (range: $180 - 7,872) (Table 2).

Table 2. Annual salary increases by position title within WDFW granted for promotions and position reallocations since January 2009. The increase shown for position type with on 1 individual representing the group is the actual increase given (not an average).

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WAFWP Letter to State Labor Relations Office - 12 July 2010

On 12 July WAFWP attorney Rhonda Fenrich sent a letter to Brad Garrett of the State of Washington Labor Relations Office regarding WAFWP's concerns and position, requests and a process Memorandum of Understanding regarding the current furloughs.  Click on the image to view the PDF file.

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Furlough / Temporary Layoff - FAQ

1. If the Association and State have not completed bargaining, will I be required to take the designated furlough dates off?
   
   The short answer is yes. As with all labor issues, including grievances, “act now, grieve later.” Any ULP or lawsuit filed by the Association will seek to reimburse employees if we prevail.
   
   
2. Can I work more than 32 hours in a furlough week?
   
   No. The State will be mandating that an employee only work 32 hours in the furlough week, otherwise it will not save the targeted salary savings. Do not work off the clock!
   
   
3. What does it mean that overtime exempt employees will become overtime employees?
   
   The State must change employees to overtime eligible or they must legally pay you your regular salary for that workweek as the Fair Labor Standards Act states that as an overtime exempt employee you must receive your full salary for any week you work the number of hours of work required by your employer. Failure to change your overtime classification will destroy your overtime exempt status and require the payment of overtime.
   
   
4. How do I catch up on my work?
   
   The Agency is responsible for identifying the work which is no longer a priority and which is to be undone. Do not work off the books! The Legislature has decided the public needs to learn what the State can’t accomplish - - - we think the Legislature and Agency also need to learn this lesson.
   
   
5. Is furlough legislation legal?
   
   We view the overall legislation as unconstitutional. We believe this is a salary reduction which has not been bargained, and which disproportionately impacts a small segment of the State.
   
   
6. What is the Association doing?
   
   We have attempted to bargain with the State to minimize the impact of this decision on our members. To date, the State is giving the legislation an extremely narrow reading and is unwilling to take any action not specifically referenced in the statute. If the State persists, we will file an unfair labor practice complaint, as well as a lawsuit.
   
   
7. What can I do?
   
   Keep track of the work you are unable to accomplish due to the furloughs, keep track of which tasks your supervisor asks you to do in non-furlough weeks to make up for your lost time. Record all hours worked . . . including at home, and any other work related tasks.

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Message from the Board Regarding Furloughs - 29 June 2010

Hello again fellow members,

We (your negotiation team) need to keep you up to date concerning furloughs. Since our previous update we have been engaged with the Office of Financial Management (OFM) and the Agency to try to negotiate the impact(s) of furloughs. You recently received an email from Director Anderson indicating furloughs are necessary to come close to meeting our mandated compensation reduction amount identified as $3.1 million. This is because the Agency was unwilling to develop an alternate cost savings plan, as indicated in our prior communication with you. The Agency also displayed an unwillingness to engage the Association, or any union representing Agency employees, in discussions regarding potential alternatives.

Director Anderson explains that the alternative was to permanently lay off more staff to create savings, however remember in our previous communication the Agency created 38 new permanent positions during this biennium. We still question the appropriateness of this type of business decision given the known budgetary constraints.

Given the unwillingness of the Agency to develop alternative compensation reduction plans, we proposed several options to the State to minimize the impact of the furloughs on our membership. These ranged from increased annual leave accruals for the year, to the ability to schedule the furlough days where they would benefit you as well as your work unit, to the ability to take a wage reduction in lieu of the layoffs and then schedule ten days off similar to the way you schedule your personal leave day now. All of these ideas were rejected out of hand by the Agency as well as OFM. The State has determined that these ideas were really a compensation reduction plan and it is too late for those plans to be considered, even though the legislation did not specify a date by which these plans were to be submitted to OFM. Please recall that on April 29th, 2010 we requested a demand to bargain meeting to develop alternative compensation reduction plans for submitting to OFM, but they did not meet with us until June 25th, 2010, ten working days prior to July 12th. In addition, your Agency stated that the ability to schedule these dates at the employee’s convenience would be too complicated for the Agency to manage.

You can anticipate, that regardless of any negotiations at this point that the State will attempt to unilaterally implement the furlough days currently scheduled for July.

At this point in time we are considering our options. We can:

1. Continue with our attempts to compel the State to engage fully in impact bargaining;
2. File an Unfair Labor Practice complaint over the State’s bad faith bargaining;
3. File a lawsuit based upon the inequities of the legislation coupled with the impairment of our right to freely contract on our members behalf; or
4. A combination of the above or another idea presented by our members.

We need your input and would like the opportunity to explain the process too date to you. To that end, we will be holding a membership meeting on July 7, 2010 from 12:00-2:00 pm at the Phoenix Inn in Olympia and one on July 8, 2010 from 1:30-3:30 pm in Spokane at Centerplace, across the street from the Region 1 Headquarters Office (please see the calendar page for directions). This is an important issue affecting us all and we hope this keeps you up to date. If you know of other members who have not been receiving our updates please alert us to their email address. Thank you.

In solidarity your negotiation team,

Marc Divens
Teresa Eturaspe
Rhonda Fenrich
Jeromy Jording
Chris Moran
Bryan Murphie
Russell Rogers
Sheila Smith

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Message from the Board Regarding Furloughs - 28 June 2010

Hello fellow members,

We (your negotiation team) would like to bring you up to date on furlough negotiations.

As early as February of this year our union informed the Agency that if furloughs were an option the legislature was considering using as a budgetary reduction tool our contract required mandatory bargaining. We informed them that any change negotiated to our current contract would need approval from our membership in the form of a vote, and that timing needed to be considered in the process of possible implementation.

After Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 6503 (ESSB 6503) passed, our union demanded to meet with the Agency and the Governor’s Office of Financial Management (OFM) on April 29th, 2010 to bargain the impacts of furloughs. In our demand to bargain we asked the following questions:

1. How many permanent positions did the agency create during the current biennium?
2. How many nonpermanent positions did the agency create during the current biennium?
3. How many employees received pay increases in the current biennium and what was the total amount?
4. Who would the furloughs affect and what would be the cost savings?

The Agency had until June 5, 2010 to notify OFM of an alternate savings plan that if implemented would offset the Agency’s need to furlough employees. The Agency refused to submit an alternative savings plan, and instead submitted nothing. They gave us the answers to the above questions 2 days after the deadline to submit an alternative savings plan to OFM. The answers:

1. 38 permanent positions (6 of which were WMS Band)
2. 126 nonpermanent positions
3. 63 employees, $318k total
4. Everyone, except for commissioned enforcement officers; savings would be 4.3% of each employee’s salary.

Despite the Governor’s urging that agencies engage their unions early in the process even when making the alternative plans, our Agency ignored the Governor’s advice. The Agency and OFM finally met with our negotiation team regarding furloughs on Friday June 25, 2010, only 10 work days before the first furlough date specified in ESSB 6503.

We asked the status of other negotiations. DNR as an agency was able to submit an alternative savings plan that was approved and their employees will not be taking any furlough days. LNI has apparently been able to reduce its number of furlough days down to 2 with their alternate savings plan. We asked why our Agency did not submit an alternate savings plan and what amount needed to be saved. The target is 3.1 million dollars, about 1 million coming from general fund savings. The Agency estimated this to be around 35 positions. We then asked why the Agency created 38 permanent and 126 nonpermanent permanent over the course of this biennium and what the funding sources for these positions were.

We reiterated that our membership had already signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Governor’s office forfeiting our negotiated pay raise of 10%, along with our 3.7% cost of living increase in this current contract to try to save our membership jobs. We then pointed out that despite this; our membership took the largest proportion of layoffs during the current biennium. To top it off we mentioned 75% of the state work force is for whatever reason exempt from these furloughs. With that context we gave them these options as part of an alternate savings plan the Agency should submit to OFM so furloughs would not be required:

1. Reduce a layer of management by eliminating all six of the Regional Director positions;
2. Reduce all Special Assistant to the Director positions;
3. Curtail all nonessential out of state meetings and conferences that Agency employees were attending;
4. Require all nonrepresented employees and negotiate MOUs with all bargaining units to forego any step increases for this coming fiscal year;
5. Do not attempt any reorganizations at this point;
6. Support State DOP absorbing our internal HR and fiscal services sections;
7. Forego purchasing new GPS units and side arms for enforcement officers for the coming fiscal year;
8. And go back to the Legislature and / or Governor and ask them to spread the cut across 100% of the state workforce, thus reducing our memberships’ individual contribution amount if target savings weren’t attained in numbers 1 - 7.

The OFM representative said the time for submitting alternate plans had passed. We asked where was the deadline published, and received a “don’t know” response. We explained this was bad faith bargaining given our initial request to bargain all the way back in April was ignored and now we were being expected to simply accept the Agency and OFM’s proposal at this late of a date.

As the Agency refused to submit an alternate savings plan by the deadline, under this duress we are negotiating secondary options of accepting limited furloughs. We were supposed to begin contract negotiations Monday June 28, 2010 for which OFM and the Agency have asked we incorporate furlough negotiations into. We feel these dates and times were set aside for collective bargaining and not for furlough negotiations, but have not been able to resolve any sort of agreement yet before the quickly approaching new fiscal year. Please be aware we have agreed to nothing, and that your Agency programs should not be telling you how they will implement a furlough day at this point as we still need to negotiate something. Your feedback is always welcome, and if we able to negotiate a plan in the best interest of the membership be aware we will have to call a meeting to perform a vote on any possible changes to our current contract. We hope this keeps you informed and up to date.

In solidarity your negotiation team,

Marc Divens
Teresa Eturaspe
Rhonda Fenrich
Jeromy Jording
Chris Moran
Bryan Murphie
Russell Rogers
Sheila Smith

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Message from the President Regarding Furloughs - 02 June 2010

Greetings,

By now you have probably seen the message sent yesterday from Joe Stohr regarding furloughs. Also yesterday, WAFWP received the attached letter (see bottom of this message) from OFM stating their desire to implement furloughs and acknowledge that they must negotiate the impacts of these furloughs with us. As you will see in the letter they also acknowledge that they received a demand to bargain back on April 29. Since the topic of furloughs came up over a year ago we have stated over and over again that furloughs are a mandatory subject of bargaining.

We have also let them know that a decision on furloughs, or a pay cut, is something that must be voted on by our members. To come to us at this late date wanting to negotiate the impacts of the furloughs is an insult to say the least.

Nonetheless, we will do all that we can to make sure your best interests are observed in this process. We will keep you informed of events as they happen.

In solidarity,

Russell

Click to view Joe Stohr's letter regarding furloughs.

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Message from the President:
Regarding Furloughs

Greetings,

A number of members have asked about furloughs and there appear to be a number of rumors flying around as well. Let me clear this up as much as I can at this point.

The first thing to remember is that furloughs are a mandatory subject of bargaining under our Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). The CBA for the other big unions, WFSE and WPEA, allows the employer to impose furloughs on them. So, no matter what the legislature decides to do, the state must come back to us and renegotiate our contract with us.

At this point the association has not spoken to the department about furloughs in any meaningful way. Back in the fall (2009) we made it clear to Joe Stohr that imposing a furlough would have to go to vote before our members.

So at this point I recommend not investing to much of your time and energy in worrying about furloughs. If you hear a news report that states something like "the legislature passed a bill that would impose mandatory furloughs on unionized state workers" it does not apply to you. I assure you that any rumor that you might hear about furloughs and how it applies to us is simply that, only a rumor.

What would be helpful to the association is for you to send me a message about how you feel about taking a furlough. If and when the time comes to sit down with the department it would be nice to say to them "here is a stack of 100 email message from our members saying..."

I look forward to hearing from you. Let me know if you have any questions.

Russell
WAFWP President

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