SHORTLY AFTER the new city of Spokane Valley was incorporated three years ago, some 35 employees filed a petition to organize under Council 2.

But only this year did the workers obtain a successful contract.
The city put up strong resistance to the organizing campaign, even going so far as to hire a Seattle attorney to negotiate the contract on their behalf.

The new city, which has a population of 86,000, was incorporated in 2003. Numerous jobs were contracted out, including the running of the parks. The city was left with only about 35 full-time clerical, professional and technical workers.

Those workers filed a petition to organize on Oct. 21, 2003.
But, even though the number of workers was relatively few and it already had contracted out many jobs, the city nevertheless fought strongly against those workers organizing.

“Some of the workers who were hired for the new city had moved over from the City of Spokane and Spokane County where they had been members of Council 2,” explains Council 2’s Director of Organizing Bill Keenan. “So they were familiar with the union and they wanted the same protection in their new positions.”

Negotiations over the contract started in early 2005. Several mediation sessions were held over 16 months with the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC).

Finally, three years after the petition was first filed, the workers now have a contract and are organized as Local 270-V.

In addition to a pay increase, the employees obtained union security as well as the right for grievances to go to arbitration and to negotiate any potential contracting-out of their jobs.

“They persevered for a long time and had to do a lot of the work on their own time,” Keenan says.

“But clearly they thought it was worth it.”

Adds Spokane Staff Representative Dean Vercruysse, who assisted in the negotiations, “The membership hung in there and got a good first and second contract.”

The bargaining unit members at the table were: Steve Stamatoplos, Scott Kuhta and Bill Schultz.