Some 50,000 public workers were urged to stage a walkout on Sept. 10 to protest state-proposed pay increases, even though those urged to act didn’t know what the state was offering. I must have trust issues. I am surprised anyone would make such a public statement without knowing more about what they were protesting. 

Public salary negotiations in Washington state are done in secret, and that’s how the union wants things. The Legislature should revise that practice, especially since unions are smearing the state's name and getting public employees on board facts unseen. 

Taxpayers, whose money is spent on state labor, should also be privy to compensation negotiations, especially as they watch lawmakers refuse to adopt a priority-based budget and instead find new ways to bring in more money for more non-priorities. “Spend within your means” is not a principle Washington state leaders have adopted. “Grow more means” is the mode of Gov. Jay Inslee and the current Legislature, even while revenue continues to increase from taxes we already have.

“The state operating budget has more than doubled in the last ten years, rising from $33 billion in 2013 to over $72 billion today, a 118% increase,” writes Paul Guppy in a Washington Policy Center blog titled, “Is government greed fueling the drive to defeat citizen-led ballot initiatives?” 

“Over the same period,” Guppy adds, “population rose 18%, and inflation rose just 34%.” 

Thousands of workers are said to have participated in the walkout coordinated by Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE). The Olympian reported 100 state employees marched the campus of the Washington state Capitol during their lunch break Tuesday. The Columbian reported dozens of Clark College employees walked out for some venting and barbecue. Washington State Standard wrote that about 60 workers gathered at the Labor and Industries Building in Tumwater. After visiting four locations across the Tri-Cities, NBCrightnow.com said only two people participated in the statewide walkout at noon, though WFSE sent an email to the media outlet saying participation across the state was “easily in the thousands.” 

Before the walkout, union leaders told the state’s workers they could not share details of the pay negotiations they were having. David Schumacher, the director of the Office of Financial Management, told Washington State Standard, “We anticipate limited revenue in the upcoming biennium.” He continued, “Just as we’ve asked state agencies to limit new programs and request only essential funding, we are applying the same principle to our negotiations.”

 The Columbian provided some good context for the ire from Clark College employees. It quoted custodian Aaron McPherson saying he’d like to hear from Olympia the logic used to justify giving teachers a double-digit increase and custodians a much lower single-digit increase. That is irksome. 

The paper also says it learned from union leaders that the state’s offer included a 2% cost-of-living adjustment in the first and second years of the next contract. That’s much lower than the pay increases public workers received in their current 2023-25 contract, which WFSE celebrated as the “largest-ever compensation package.” 

The 2023-35 contract cost taxpayers more than $1 billion and included 4% across-the-board increases effective in July of 2023, another 3% across-the-board increase in 2024, reduced health care costs, $1,000 retention bonuses, 185 class-specific wage increases, increased shift premiums and much more. It also brought public workers controversial and insulting $1,000 incentives for receiving COVID-19 booster shots and not being fired like thousands of their colleagues.

I don’t remember unions calling for walkouts and barbecues to bring awareness to that contract victory.   

WFSE should have urged action on Labor Day for the best optics. Workers using their free time on a paid holiday to send their message would have had more impact.  It’s also a traditional day for barbecue. And while a walkout during a lunch hour is far better than a public-employee strike that drains taxpayers' dollars and that is prohibited, despite the state’s failure to assess penalties for the illegal activity, that is what some of the walkers are indicating could happen now. 

The Columbian story says, “Several Clark employees at Tuesday’s event said they were prepared to do more to show the state the current offers aren’t acceptable, including a strike sometime in the future.” The Olympian reported that Kurt Spiegel, executive director of AFSCME Council 28, said if the walkout doesn’t send a clear enough message for workers to get the union’s pay demands, “the union is prepared to escalate tactics.” He didn't make it clear what that meant.

Public unions clearly need to remind workers that public employee strikes are illegal. They could send that message along with one promising they will respect workers’ right to know what is being negotiated on their behalf.

Contract secrecy benefits no one. Public employees and taxpayers should be afforded the information needed to decide who is being unreasonable in a negotiation over taxpayer dollars.

* Read more about this issue in an opinion column that ran in several publications this week, submitted by Jason Mercier, vice president at Mountain States Policy Center, Jackson Maynard, executive director of the Citizen Action Defense Fund, and Elizabeth New of the Washington Policy Center.