Gov. Chris Gregoire’s plan to plug a $5.7 billion budget gap with across-the-board pain has been called responsible, realistic and even courageous.
State workers now contend it’s also illegal. The state’s largest employee union is suing Gregoire, challenging her decision to skip pay raises for state employees. Other unions are expected to follow suit.
Gregoire had to see it coming. The Federation of State Employees is doing what unions do – fighting hard for its dues-paying members.
But this isn’t just about rescuing workers’ 2 percent raises from the budget heap. The federation is also seeking to further strengthen its bargaining position by getting a court to invalidate part of the law it helped pass.
State employee unions irked by the Legislature’s record of balancing the state budget on their members’ paychecks scored in 2002 with the passage of collective bargaining. No longer could state lawmakers tinker with state employee pay. They either accept the contracts as negotiated by the governor or reject them entirely.
For the past four years, state workers have reaped the benefits. Workers got a 3.2 percent raise in 2005, 1.6 percent in 2006, 3.2 percent in 2007 and 2 percent this year. They were fixed to continue the streak, having settled on 2 percent raises for 2009 and 2010 in negotiations with Gregoire this summer.
Then state revenues began their freefall.
The collective bargaining law has an out clause that allows the governor to not request funding for employee contracts if the cost is not financially feasible. Gregoire did just that when she announced her budget earlier this month. Freezing state worker pay allowed her to save education and social services from even more devastation.
If the governor doesn’t ask for the money for cost-of-living adjustments, the Legislature can’t give it. And that rankles unions looking at huge Democratic majorities in the Legislature that might be willing to buck Gregoire, if only they could.
The federation is asking a judge to strike down the part of the law that prohibits the Legislature from unilaterally considering employee contracts. The union that helped bench lawmakers now wants them back in the game.
No court can compel state lawmakers to play. Democrats in the Legislature should not kid themselves that state worker raises are an option given the historic proportions of the state’s budget deficit.
The alternative is to deliver a bigger blow to the people already brought low by the recession, and that is no option at all.
