Council 2's Winter 99 Newsletter

The Washington State Council of County and City Employees Afscme Afl-Cio continues to grow and branch out now across state lines and into Idaho. The initiative that the Union and our membership in the City of Coeur d’Alene have worked hard to have placed on the ballot is really a key test as to whether or not these public employees will enjoy the basic right of collective bargaining. In the state of Washington many of us may already have taken this right for granted. But the lesson in Idaho of how it can be eliminated has also happened here – specifically to the Deputy Prosecutors by the misguided decision of the State Supreme Court.

The battle in Idaho really started in the Fall of 97 when the Mayor and the City Council in Coeur d’Alene decided on their own that they not only wanted to take back many of the benefits that the members had negotiated for over the years, but dictate the terms of any future conditions of employment. The problem in their way was that for many years the city employees had enjoyed the right to collectively bargain as provided for in a City ordinance. Unlike the state of Washington, where the county and city membership enjoy the right due to the passage of a state law, Idaho has no state statute and it needs to be enacted specifically by the county or city. Well, they figured very quickly that, since our membership didn’t roll over to their proposed benefit cuts, they would remove their ability to bargain altogether. In March of 1998 they did exactly that – and they repealed the 20-year-old Collective Bargaining Ordinance.

That’s when the membership got busy and gathered the signatures of more than 1,400 of their fellow citizens and placed the issue on the city-wide ballot. Initiative 1, the only item on the ballot come February 2nd, will determine whether or not the City of Coeur d’Alene employees will be able to restore their collective bargaining rights.

The campaign to make sure we are successful is now under way and by all indications is looking very positive. The resources provided by our Union have been crucial and the point needs to be remembered that, in order to remove these rights, it only takes a group of judges, a city council or a state legislature.

We all need to keep active and do what we can to make sure that these attacks on collective bargaining don’t happen anywhere else.

News In Brief

Yes to 91-1 and yes to 1

If you live in Spokane or Coeur d’Alene and you are a registered voter, you must vote in special ballots being held in those cities on Feb. 2.
Urge your coworkers, friends and family to vote, too.

The ballot goes right to the heart of issues –which also involve collective bargaining rights – that are vitally important to Council 2.
In Coeur d’Alene, the issue will be the only one on the ballot.

The issues are so important that in both cities Council 2 is launching some of the biggest advertising campaigns ever waged by the union. In both cases, registered voters will be targeted with advertising by direct mail as well as on radio and in newspapers.

Endorsed candidates are winners

Candidates endorsed by Council 2 were extremely successful in the November elections.
Some 90 percent of those who were backed by the union won their races.
The result is a state legislature that is more pro-labor than the previous line-up in the House and Senate.
“Now the Senate has returned control to the Democrats and miraculously the House is tied between the two parties,” says Pat Thompson, Director of Legislation/Political Action for Council 2.
“No one was predicting as big a victory as we had. We expected the Senate had a good shot at returning to Democratic control, but we thought the House would remain in Republican hands.
“The overall theme is that this will be the first year in several years that our issues will not have to take a back seat and we will not be in a defensive mode as before.
“We have a real opportunity to advance our agenda.”
Among the most resounding victories was that of Steve Tucker, who decisively beat Council 2’s Public Enemy Number One Jim Sweetser in the Spokane Prosecutor’s race. (See report on Tucker on Page 1.)
Sweetser was the incumbent. Among the reasons Council 2 urged his overthrow was that he challenged the union’s collective bargaining process. Sweetser said that the collective bargaining process did not apply to his employees, declaring them to be “at-will” employees.
His ruling was challenged in court. Two weeks before the election, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Sweetser’s favor.
Although Sweetser lost the election, the result of his actions remain in place and are binding on Tucker until they are changed. The only way to seek relief is through legislative action.
With stronger pro-labor forces in the legislature such action is more likely. The initial response from the legislature has been “very positive,” Thompson says.
Judges in Spokane County District Court piggy-backed on Sweetser’s ruling, claiming the state had no authority to implement the collective bargaining law on their District Court employees.
They sued the state, which sided with Council 2. In October, the court ruled against the judges by an 8-to-1 margin.
Both Sweetser and the District Court judges argued that the collective bargaining law did not cover them and that their employees served at their pleasure. Although the issue essentially was the same, the court ruled differently in each case.

Members' support was key factor

New Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker, right, poses
with Council 2 President/Executive Director Chris Dugovich.

In all the 1998 election campaigns across the state, one race attracted the support of more individual Council 2 members than any other.
It was the campaign to elect Steve Tucker as the new prosecuting attorney for Spokane County.
Members worked tirelessly to ensure that Tucker beat Public
Enemy No. 1 Jim Sweetser, who was voted into the office of prosecutor four years ago.
Council 2 members were not alone in their support for Tucker. He was endorsed by The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, which commented, “Jim Sweetser has made a mess of the Spokane County prosecutor’s office. It’s time for voters to effect a change.” (See extract from editorial on Page 4.)
The voters – encouraged by the hard work of Council 2 members – did just that.
Not only did Tucker, 48, beat Sweetser, he also received a just reward for his work over the years as deputy prosecutor – and for his work for Council 2.
Tucker began his career as a patrolman in Spokane. After attending law school at night, he became an attorney and was hired in the deputy prosecutors’ office.
Before long, Tucker was elected president of the Local 1553-PA bargaining unit.
His popularity in that office was proven when he received strong support in the Fall election. Tucker received 54 percent of the votes.
Now Tucker will head 50 deputy prosecutors in Spokane County.
“This is one of the election victories that the Union is most proud of over many election cycles,” says Chris Dugovich, President/Executive Director of Council 2. “Steve really was an active participant in our union, both locally and statewide.”
Everyone is committed to make sure that Tucker’s future as prosecutor is successful, Dugovich added.
“It is extremely satisfying to have the opportunity to support an active member and see their subsequent election to an office they have sought.”

Union will tackle two main issues

Two major issues will dominate Council 2’s legislative agenda during this session of the State Legislature, which began Jan. 11.

“We are on the outside looking in with the current structure,” says Pat Thompson, Council 2’s Director of Legislation/Political Action.

Yakima bus driver (and Council 2 member) wins international contest

Wayne Parsley, a member of Local 1122 in Yakima, is a star among bus drivers, not only in Yakima, but everywhere.
Parsley took first place in the 35-foot bus category at the International Bus Roadeo held recently in New York City.

For 17 years, Parsley has guided buses through the streets of Yakima as a city transit operator. He also has won first place in the local Bus Roadeo competition and placed third in the regional competition and third in the state contest.
He has competed in the international event five times. But this was the first time he had won.
To gain the honors, Parsley guided a 35-foot bus through 11 obstacle courses, scoring 610 out of 650 points in an elapsed time of 6 minutes and 8 seconds.
His closest competitor was a few car lengths behind him and scored only 579 points.
Parsley also was scored on adherence to uniform-appearance standards.
“It was a really good run,” Parsley told the Yakima Herald-Republic afterwards.
“When they announced my name for first place, all the other people from Washington state at the awards banquet were screaming their heads off for me.”
The trophy that Parsley received will be on display at Yakima Transit. He also received a smaller trophy to take home.

State Legislature for 1999

Senate
Democrats 27
Republicans 22

House
Democrats 49
Republicans 49

Majority Leader
Sen. Sid Snyder
D�Long Beach

Minority Leader
Sen. Dan McDonald
R�Yarrow Point

Co-Speakers of the House
Rep. Frank Chopp
D�Seattle

Rep. Clyde Ballard
R�East Wenatchee

Chopp and Ballard will take turns presiding over the House.

Arbitrator slams County's actions

A woman who was fired for allegedly interfering with an internal investigation has been reinstated.
The reinstatement of the woman–employed for 16 years at the Spokane County 911 Center–was ordered by Labor Arbitrator Jane R. Wilkinson.
She replaced the termination with a written reprimand and ruled that the woman be paid all lost wages and benefits.
The County conducted an investigation of workplace misconduct. The Spokane County Administration said the women was fired because she was said to have told a subordinate details of her subsequent questioning about the incident. This allegedly interfered with the Employer’s investigation.
In overturning the termination, Wilkinson said she identified numerous grounds for setting aside the discharge – probably more grounds than in any other case in her more than 10 years experience as a labor arbitrator.
She said she hopes the employer will understand that disciplinary matters “cannot be handled in the manner it did in this case.”
Wilkinson listed several reasons to overturn the termination
Among them:

Wilkinson said the woman should be treated the same as others had been – she should receive a written reprimand.
The employer was ordered to reinstate the grievant to her former position and to pay her for all lost wages and benefits.

No just cause for firing, arbitrator says

The City of Spokane failed to prove that a civilian supervisor of Police Radio Dispatchers was discharged for just cause, an arbitrator has ruled.
The arbitrator, Thomas F. Levak, not only ordered that the woman be reinstated to her former position, with full back pay, but also that she receive 8 percent interest on the pay as well as full benefits.
The woman was fired for a non-work-related incident.
Levak, found that not only were the charges against the grievant not proved, but also serious due process violations occurred.
“Clear and convincing evidence established that there was no basis for the charges, which were unproved in every respect,” Levak said.
“Because the charge against her was totally without merit, and because of the serious due process violations that occurred, the grievant is entitled to reinstatement to her former position,” Levak said.

Woman's shock discovery:

When a woman working the graveyard shift at the 911 Center in Thurston County glanced at information on the data screen one evening in 1997, she was unprepared for what she saw.
The name of her son was on the screen as one of the suspects in an alleged hold-up. He was said to be threatening to shoot someone at an AM/PM market and was reaching under the seat for what the caller thought might be a gun.
Not only that; the license number on the screen was that of her car.
The actions taken by the woman after that were the subject of her termination later. But that termination was overturned in a hearing in which the woman was reinstated with full back pay.
After seeing the details on the screen, the woman, who had been on the telephone to her sister, hung up and paged her son. When her son returned the page, he denied that he was threatening to shoot anyone. In the meantime his mother was told by an official at the 911 center that the person with her son was said to be a party of interest in a robbery the previous evening.
The woman told her son to meet her at the 911 center and to bring the other boy with him. The woman called the Olympia police who said they would be there when the boys arrived at the center.
The boys arrived and were taken for questioning by the police, but no charges were filed against them.
Subsequent calls made by the woman from the center later that night to her sister and her son were taped. In them she gave advice to her son.
When the Department Director learned of the woman’s activities that night, he wrote her a letter suspending her with pay pending an investigation. At that time, the hearing was told, he had not interviewed the woman involved or the shift supervisor and he had not listened to the tapes.
Later the woman was terminated from her position. She was told she had released confidential information concerning the identity of the complaining party and the nature of the complaint against her son and the other boy.
A grievance was filed. During the grievance process, the woman said similar situations had occurred with other operators but no action had been taken. Later the matter was taken to arbitration.
At the arbitration hearing, Council 2 contended that the woman did not break the code of confidentiality and security because the relevant information already had been dispatched over the air.
The union argued that the woman had not tried to conceal her actions and her supervisor had not tried to stop her. In addition, her actions did not jeopardize the safety of others and there was no breach of security.
The arbitrator, George Lehleitner, criticized the Department Director for suspending the grievant without interviewing anyone on the shift, reviewing the tapes, or giving the grievant an opportunity to explain herself.
Also, he said, the grievant had tried to offer information on previous instances of conflicts of interest but the County refused to consider it.
“The county did not have just cause to discharge the grievant,” Lehleitner said. “Her conduct amounted to a minor violation warranting nothing more than a verbal reprimand.”
He ordered the county to offer reinstatement to the grievant with full back pay and benefits.

What the initiatives are all about

The initiative in Spokane to be voted on Feb. 2 – Initiative 98-1 – would create a Municipal Court in the city.
The establishment of such a court would save the City of Spokane $218,000, according to calculations by an independent account firm. That amount is 8.4 percent of the total budget of $2.61 million.
The calculations indicate the judges are handling only 75 percent of the cases they should be; therefore they are working part-time.
“We have identified that they are charging the City for five judges when the court needs only three,” says Chris Dugovich, President/Executive Director for Council 2. The judges’ salaries would be reduced from $98,000 to $75,000, bringing the City of Spokane municipal judge salary in line with similar positions in Washington.
Additional savings from the creation of a Municipal Court would be reduced overtime for City Police due to court scheduling difficulties and potential income from providing Municipal Court services to other cities.
Not only that, the new court would be staffed with judges elected by the City of Spokane. At present the City contracts out the court duties to the District Court judges. These are the same judges who challenged our Collective Bargaining law as it pertains to their employees. They recently lost an 8-to-1 decision in the Supreme Court on that issue.
The initiative is a direct result of work by Council 2 to gather signatures to place the issue on the Feb. 2 ballot. More than 13,000 signatures were gathered. Dugovich points out that the Spokane voting takes place by an all-mail ballot of the city’s 104,000 registered voters.
“It is extremely important we vote on this issue,” Dugovich says. “A lot of people won’t bother to vote.”
An advertising campaign funded by Council 2, which includes direct mail, newspaper and radio advertisements, has been launched to garner support for the initiative.

The issue in an initiative being voted on in Coeur d’Alene on Feb. 2 is collective bargaining rights, one of the most important issues to Council 2.
In March last year, the City Council voted 6-1 to rescind the Collective Bargaining Ordinance governing negotiations between the union and city employees.
Collective bargaining is the bedrock of our rights as union members, points out Pat Thompson, Director of Legislation/Political Action for Council 2.
“It is the basis on which we negotiate contracts.”
The 90 employees of Coeur d’Alene City, represented by Council 2, assisted by police officers also affected by the removal of the ordinance, gathered more than 1,400 signatures to ensure the issue was placed on the Feb. 2 initiative.
The Coeur d’Alene mayor filed temporary restraining orders to try to stop the initiative appearing on the ballot.
But Council 2 fought back.
“We have been extremely successful in fending off the enormous attempts by the mayor to prevent this issue from being on the ballots,” says Thompson. “The success was made possible only through the perseverance of our members.”
For Council 2, this initiative is marked by a number of “firsts.” It is the first time collective bargaining rights have been removed in this way, it is the first time such an issue has been put on a ballot by Council 2, and it is the first time Council 2 has waged such a strong advertising campaign in this area.
“We have been working on this since May,” Thompson explains. “Now our efforts will culminate with the election Feb. 2.”
The direct mail and the advertising campaigns will start just before the voting day. The media blitz began in mid-January.
Collective bargaining is the only issue on the ballot. All registered voters in the city of Coeur d’Alene are entitled to vote.

Sweetser blew his chance, paper says

Extract from an editorial in The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Oct. 23, 1998:

“Four years ago, we endorsed Jim Sweetser in his campaign to become Spokane County prosecuting attorney and the voters elected him.
Today, we regret it. So should the voters.
Sweetser has done serious damage to an office that is crucial in the war on crime. In addition, his managerial ineptitude has harmed the county’s justice system as a whole.
We endorse Steve Tucker, a former deputy prosecutor and state patrolman…Tucker does understand what has gone wrong and offers a plan to fix it…
Voters should give him a chance.
Sweetser’s had a chance and he blew it.”

This time, the calls for help came from the 911 operators, not to them. In three different cases, operators were fired for incidents at the call centers. Council 2, represented by Audrey Eide, responded to the calls for help, took the cases to arbitration–and won.
Details of the hearings appear on this page

Coeur d’Alene experience is lesson for us all

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