Vol. 11 No. 2 View the Table of Contents Summer 1996
Letter From The President

How our Union was founded
President Chris DugovichThe Washington State Council of City and County Employees, AFSCME, AFL-CIO is celebrating its 50th year of existence in 1996. For better than half a century, the union has been working on behalf of local government employees to retain and enhance their rights as public employees.

Back in 1946 when our charter was first granted by the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, the local unions that existed had been directly chartered through the International Union without a state council.

A handful of our local unions existed even prior to AFSCME’s creation and were chartered directly from the AFL-CIO. After the creation of Council 2, the initial job of the new organization was to affiliate with the state council all of the local unions that existed at this time.

Local 120 Pierce County-City of Tacoma, Local 109 Snohomish County Roads, Local 113 City of Everett, and local 87 Yakima County, just to name a few, were all part of this process. Local 21, City of Seattle employees, although a low number, was organized in 1962 during the Seattle World’s Fair. The theme of the Seattle World’s Fair was Century 21. Due to the event and its theme, AFSCME granted the City of Seattle employees the Number 21 for its charter.

In the early 50s, gains that the union made included allowing local government employees to participate in both the Public Employment Retirement System and Social Security. Up until then, it was not even an option to participate and you can imagine that only the larger jurisdictions had set up retirement systems. Some of them still exist today in Tacoma, Seattle and Spokane.

For a period prior to 1959, a City of Spokane employee by the name of Orville Schwartz served as the President of Council 2. In 1959, Jerry Burke, the president of Snohomish County Roads Local 109 was elected and served a two-year term. In 1961, the Council 2 convention changed its constitution in reaction to its growing membership of 2,000 local government employees and elected its first full-time President/Executive Director, Sam Kinville.

Sam’s foresight is something that all local government employees continue to benefit from today. In 1966 he lobbied for, and gained passage of, rcw 41.56, the Collective Bargaining Law that has served us well during the past 30 years. If you step back and think about the difficulties of organizing or gaining any type of wage or benefit increase without any legal obligations whatsoever for the employer even to discuss these issues, you know how significant and important the Collective Bargaining Law has been.

Sam served until he accepted a position with the Washington State Labor Council and the Union elected Larry McKibben, a member of the staff, to the position of President/Executive Director. Larry served in the position until his retirement in the Fall of 1989 and guided the Union through the negotiation under the collective bargaining law of its first contracts and brought about its growth to a membership of approximately 7,800. He also served a term as an AFSCME International vice-president.

In the Fall of 1989 I became the President/Executive Director of Council 2. We now boast close to 13,000 members statewide.

The real history of the Union involves the countless number of grievances settled and won that have saved jobs and all the contracts that have sometimes slowly, but surely, made local government employment an excellent profession. This Union over the last 50 years is why our membership has a retirement plan, health insurance and the ability to bargain collectively.

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News In Brief
Workshop called educational, worthwhile

About 70 local presidents, treasurers and trustees of Councils 2 and 28 attended a Secretary-Treasurer Workshop held by Council 2 in Spokane in May. Conducted by William Del Pino, of the AFSCME Auditing Department, the workshop focused on financial responsibilities to the Local and reporting requirements. The overwhelming comment by those who attended was that the workshop was extremely educational and worthwhile. They said they will attend again. The workshop will be hosted again in 1997.

Council 2's home page proves popular

Council 2’s home page on the Internet is becoming popular. Hundreds already have checked out the site on the World Wide Web and many have sent electronic mail messages to the union. The page contains information on Council 2, articles from recent issues of this newspaper, and a list of members of the 1996 state legislature. The page also includes links to other sites of interest to members, including the AFL-CIO page and the AFSCME page. 

Council 2 turns 50
This year, the Washington State Council of County and City Employees, AFSCME, AFL-CIO, is celebrating its 50th year of existence. The anniversary was celebrated at the recent AFSCME convention in Chicago (see report below). President/Executive Director Chris Dugovich devotes his column this issue to the anniversary. Among the interesting facts about the history of Council 2 that he relates is why AFSCME granted the City of Seattle employees the number 21 for its charter in 1962.

McEntee and Lucy re-elected to post
Some 4,000 delegates from all across the country attended the 32nd AFSCME convention held June 17-21 in Chicago. Among them were more than 100 delegates from Council 2, who celebrated the union’s 50th anniversary during the convention. International President Gerald McEntee was one of the guests at the anniversary party. Council 2 is affiliated to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents some 1.3 million workers.

Among the convention highlights:

  • McEntee and Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy both were re-elected by an overwhelming margin to lead AFSCME for the next four years.
  • Council 2 President and Executive Director Chris Dugovich was elected International Vice President for the Northwestern Legislative District (see separate report below).
  • President Bill Clinton addressed the convention on its fifth, and final, day. Clinton told the convention delegates that the economy is undergoing rapid change. He said, too, that workers in state and local governments are willing to, able to, and actually bringing about change. "And you ought to get credit for the changes you’re making to make the American people live better."
  • Ted Kennedy and House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt also addressed delegates. Kennedy told the delegates that the Bulls may be the champions of basketball, "but AFSCME is the champion of working people." He said that McEntee and Lucy are two of the finest leaders in the union movement. "I’m proud to have them as my friends and you should be proud to have them as your leaders."
  • Aaron Feuerstein, ceo of Malden Mills, received a standing ovation for keeping his workers on the payroll while his family-owned mill was being rebuilt after a fire burned it to the ground.

Feuerstein earned nationwide recognition shortly before Christmas last year when he decided to continue paying wages and benefits to his employees. His workers are members of unite!

Feuerstein told delegates that he believes what he did was not heroic, but merely decent. He became a national hero, he said, only because of a lack of morality in the rest of corporate America.

CEOs have three responsibilities, he said. They have a responsibility to the long-term shareholder and to making a profit. But they have a responsibility to the worker, he added. "The worker is not just a cuttable expense, a pair of hands. Workers are what put the quality in the product," Feuerstein said. A scholarship was established in the memory of long-time union organizer Joey Parisi, who died Oct. 11, 1995. (See County and City Employee, Vol. 10 No. 3.) The Joey Parisi Memorial Scholarship will enable a qualified full-time AFSCME organizer to earn a four-year labor studies college degree through the George Meany Center and in cooperation with Antioch University.

Pension plan under review
Your pension plan could be at risk in the next legislative session. New proposals to change the plan that were put on hold during the last session could be suddenly revived.

"The Pension Planning Policy Committee can breathe life into the plan at any time," Council 2’s Legislation/Political Action Director Pat Thompson warns.

And so a group of workers’ representatives is working overtime to be ready should that happen -- and to protect your interests.

Council 2 is part of a coalition of groups that represent more than 100,000 pers members. The coalition is meeting regularly to compare notes and to come up with a united plan that they can present to the legislature.

After all, they point out, they represent you. And it’s your money that is involved. Here’s what’s wrong with the new proposal:

  • It does nothing to lower the retirement age of 65.
  • It provides inadequate pension benefits by creating two halves that don’t add up to a whole pension plan.
  • It doesn’t recognize the occupational differences of jobs. Those who work in physically demanding jobs, such as correctional officers, should be allowed an option for a lower retirement age, Council 2 believes.
  • It does not allow for contribution terms to be negotiated.

The coalition wants rates to be negotiable as part of bargaining agreements.

"If you could negotiate with your employer, you would be able to negotiate whether the employer would pay part of your contribution," Thompson explains. The coalition has been meeting with Sen. Karen Fraser, the new chair of the committee. Both she and the executive committee of the Joint Committee on Pension Policy (jcpp) were presented with the coalition’s concerns and shown an outline of the coalition’s proposed plan. "We are naturally concerned with creating a better pension program for our employees and that won’t happen if we don’t fill the void after the Plan III postponement," Thompson explains. "Our plan basically is to create a new plan which is a redesign of pers II." pers II is the existing pension plan. The benefit provisions of the proposed plan are similar to pers II and employees would choose among five tiers of retirement ages. They would be required to pay a higher contribution rate should they choose a lower age. "That is the feedback we have been getting from around the state," Thompson says. "Members would be willing to pay more money if it means an earlier retirement age."

Under the new plan, the retirement ages would range from 55 to 65. Should a person wish to retire at 65, they would continue under virtually what is now pers II. Cost is a major consideration under the new proposals. The jcpp has taken the view that any new pension plan should not cost the state more than the present plan in place. This view is the result of Initiative 601, which placed spending limits on the state. But the coalition argues that preventing some workers from taking retirement earlier than 65 is itself costing the state more. The reason: Some public workers positions are so physically taxing that the local government employers are paying a much higher rate on disability and injury claims as a result of age by keeping the employees in a job beyond their physical capability. So, in effect, costs would be cut by allowing those workers to retire earlier. A reason the coalition has been successful in getting the ear of the committee is that it is united in its opposition to the pers III plan. "We are convincing the committee that this is the public employees pension plan," Thompson adds. "This is our plan. It is our money that funds it. "We are working now with the committee and the state actuary to come up with a draft."

The task is immense. Some 100,000 employees are affected and many different groups are involved. But the coalition is convinced it will be able to present its proposals to the jcpp before the end of the year. "It is a big challenge, but we are up to it and we are working hard on it," Thompson says.

Dugovich elected International Vice President
Chris Dugovich, President/Executive Director of Council 2, has been elected an International Vice President of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

Dugovich will represent Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming on the AFSCME board. Dugovich, who defeated the incumbent in an election held during the June AFSCME convention in Chicago, will serve four years.

Dugovich said that one of his main aims is to encourage closer ties and to improve communications throughout the region. "We will produce our first regional newsletter sometime before the first of October," Dugovich said. "And we are in the initial stages of planning a regional conference."

Both the newsletter and the conference are new and are Dugovich’s ideas. In addition, he is planning to attend council executive board meetings in the region and to have open access with the membership. Members are encouraged to contact Dugovich directly if he can provide any assistance from the International Union to their locals.

The first, brief meeting of the new board took place right after the election. The next meeting was held in early August in Chicago before the start of the Democratic National Convention.

Contracting out issue is heavily debated
Most everybody agrees that the present legislative wording on contracting out of public works projects is a mess. But the agreement stops there. The big dispute is over just what should replace it. And that has been the subject of recent study meetings and intense discussion. Council 2 is strongly involved in the discussions as so many of its members are affected by moves toward contracting out jobs that are better done in-house. So the union has given testimony to the study meetings and is working with legislative staff to ensure that the interests of its members are protected. For county workers, the measure, Substitute House Bill 2785--passed into law last year--contains a number of problem provisions. Among them: It sets arbitrary limits on what can be contracted out. These limits vary depending on the size of the county, the size of its budget, and on specific projects. Parts of the bill were written to overcome a problem that had arisen in King County, not in other counties. Its language contains confusing interpretations, including Supreme Court cases that affect everything from port districts to city public works departments. There are different rules for different employers. Public employees are not even allowed the opportunity to perform a number of projects ranging from minor courthouse remodeling to bridge and street work. And no consideration is taken of cost and efficiency. Because of the dispute and confusion -- and as a result of Council 2’s opposition to the measure -- Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, who is chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations, called for an interim study of the issue last session. Those who testified at the study meetings, chaired by Haugen, were: Council 2’s Pat Thompson; Rep. Bill H. Reams, the prime sponsor of the bill; Gary Lowe, of the Washington Association of Counties; Doug Peterson and Duke Schaub, of the Associated General Contractors of Washington; K. O. Rosenberg of Northeast Tri Counties; and Michael Shaw of King County. The counties and cities are in agreement on the ability of public employees to do the work in-house. The question is whether they want to fight as hard as Council 2 does to achieve that. The contractor community, however, is opposed to public employees doing all but minor work. "The contractor community -- the privateers -- become very nervous when they are caught with their snout in the public trough," Thompson says. Council 2 is the only union representing public employees on this body. "Ideally, we would like to see a situation where decisions on projects are made at the local level with no arbitrary restraints from state government," Thompson says. "Local governments and local government employees know best how to complete the projects we are talking about." Arbitrary numbers are set up that are outdated within a few short years. At the very least there should be an escalator clause so it will grow with inflation, Thompson adds. "The issue of local control and cost efficiency should be attractive to politicians on both sides of the aisle if all the rhetoric about saving tax dollars is sincere. "However, we can never underestimate the political clout that private contractors can bring to the table. "The rhetoric that we hear from the privateers would almost have you believe that local governments are competing with private contractors to build strip malls and condominiums when, in fact, we are talking about publicly-owned facilities. "The same people believe that local government exists to subsidize private contractors because that, in effect, is what they are doing." Thus far Senator Haugen has been supportive about giving local government more flexibility in completing their own projects. With both these issues, we are cautiously optimistic there will be improvements, but that will naturally depend on the mix of legislators we get after the 1996 elections, Thompson says.

125 join Council 2
Some 125 new members recently have been added to the ranks of Council 2. They include: Ä About 35 workers for the City of Puyallup. The workers were first approached to join Council 2 about three years ago. Over time, interest in joining the union grew as the then non-members saw how the represented employees gained more than they had. Eventually an election was held in July. The workers voted to join Council 2. Ä Also new to Council 2 are about 15 Snohomish County Park Rangers. Ä In Douglas County seven employees in the Parks and Recreation Department voted to join the union. Ä Fourteen maintenance workers in the King County Library system also have joined Council 2. They are the first group of workers to be organized in King County Library. Ä Council 2 is working on the first wage agreement for 104 pagers in the Tacoma Public Library who voted in October last year to join the union. In terms of a Christy Agreement, any wage settlement will be retroactive to February 1996. Council 2 also is using interest-based bargaining. Instead of taking positions on issues, the sides try to determine the interests of both parties and try mutually to resolve them.

Scholarship Awards
LOCAL-AWARDED SCHOLARSHIPS

Rosalind Joyce has been chosen as the recipient of AFSCME Local 275’s first annual Student Scholarship. Worth $500, it was created to further the educational goals of the dependents of Local 275 members. AFSCME Local 275 represents more than 400 County, City and Classified School employees in Grays Harbor County. Rosalind is a student at Hoquiam High School and is the daughter of Dale and Laura McAllister of Hoquiam. Her mother, Laura, is an employee of the Grays Harbor County Public Works Department. Shawna M. Waters of Lilliwaup has been awarded a $100 scholarship by AFSCME, representing Mason County Employees Union Local 1504. Shawna is the daughter of Dan and Diana Waters of Lilliwaup. Her mother, Diana, works for the Mason County Treasurer’s Office. Shawna plans to start her new education at Pacific Lutheran University in the Fall. She will major in secondary education. Her goal is to teach 6th grade.

COUNCIL 2-AWARDED SCHOLARSHIPS

Kristi Arnson, (Local 2617); Mariah Benham (270); Kimberly Deckman (334); and Stephanie Kjelland (270-M) each have received $1,000 Scholarship Awards from Council 2. The awards are given to children of Council 2 members. Grant Castle (Local 307-VC); Kathryn Hagseth (1553); Len Langston (874); and Patty Yahne (874-HC) each have been selected to receive $500 Continuing Education Awards from Council 2. The awards are given to Council 2 members.

Michelle Caird has received the Labor Center’s Summer School for Trade Union Women Award from Council 2. Caird, who is affiliated with Local 1553, graduated in May from Western Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in the Board of Governor’s Program. She is interested in pursuing a career in labor relations and believes the Labor Center will afford her an excellent opportunity to do so.

 

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