COUNCIL 2 and its 263 local unions are weathering the economic storm, says President/Executive Director Chris Dugovich.

Speaking at the union’s 49th convention in Spokane in early June, Dugovich pointed out that in spite of job losses in public and private sector unions, Council 2 has lost only a handful of jobs so far.

“Instead of layoffs, we’ve agreed to job-saving furloughs in King and Snohomish counties and cities like Renton and Kent.

“We’ve entered into voluntary cost reduction programs in Kitsap and across the state our members are going out of their way to propose solutions to the crisis.”

He attributed the union’s success in the wake of the worst recession in decades to the fact that it always focuses on the basics — negotiating smart contracts, lobbying for key legislation and organizing new members.

But, Dugovich added, for the first time in his 27-year career with Council 2, “we are negotiating cuts.

“It’s a difficult situation and will require us to continue working together to protect jobs and critical services. Hopefully the worst is over.”

Other speakers at the convention — attended by 228 delegates and 70 guests — emphasized the importance of cooperation between labor and management to successfully negotiate the ravages of the economic downturn.

Mary Verner

“We have a $7 million shortfall for 2010,” said Spokane Mayor Mary Verner. “But, thanks to the cooperation of our employees, we have money in reserve and we are not in panic mode.

“We are sitting down with our labor leaders to determine how we are going to work through this together. If we didn’t have such cooperative employees we would not have been able to do it.

“We could have said we would have layoffs and bite the bullet; but we can do better than that. The employees have agreed that we can work hard to avoid that and try to help out every employee because they are the ones who deliver the services.”

Lee Saunders

Lee Saunders, executive assistant to Afscme President Gerald McEntee, told convention goers: “We are dealing with a terrible economy, but if a politician wants to talk to us as equals on how we can confront and solve these problems we are willing to do so.

“We must keep our eyes on the prize: build our union and do our best to avoid cutbacks on services and laying off of workers.”

Elected members of Executive Board are sworn in
	Kathleen Etheredge, Chris Dugovich, Lee Saunders and Ron Fredin
	Host Committee getting ready for Saturday night's dinner-dance
	Convention delegates from Local 21-P

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