State workers protested near Steilacoom City Hall. Here’s what they are upset about
Two dozen state employees in green shirts took to the street outside Steilacoom City Hall on Tuesday, walking out of work to advocate for better pay and conditions at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island, where high-risk sex offenders complete treatment and rehabilitation.
The Washington Federation of State Employees union is in contract negotiations with the state for 2025-2027, and union employees aren’t happy with how that’s going. The protest in Steilacoom was part of a statewide “Walkout for Washington” campaign, with other state-run facility walkouts taking place Tuesday in Olympia, Seattle, Spokane, Union Gap, Sequim and Bellingham.
“Public service is under attack. What do we do? Stand up, fight back!” Special Commitment Center employees chanted Tuesday in Pierce County, attracting the honks of passing cars.
AJ Wallace, who has worked as a residential rehabilitation counselor at the Special Commitment Center (SCC) for a year, said the state is proposing rolling back 5% raises and cutting funding for future hires.
“It’s pushing people out of a job that’s already underpaid, underfunded, understaffed, and it’s led to more injuries, more burnout,” Wallace said. “It’s a bad situation for everybody.”
In an email to The News Tribune on Monday, the state Office of Financial Management said bargaining is currently ongoing with about 30 groups of represented state workers. Deputy communications director Hayden Mackley said temporary pay increases negotiated for 2023-2025 are set to expire next June, “as proscribed in the parties’ collective bargaining agreement.”
“Because bargaining is ongoing, we are not able to comment on specifics, but we continue to have confidence in the bargaining process and that we will come to a successful resolution,” Mackley wrote. “We’re facing challenging fiscal choices as we anticipate limited revenue in the upcoming biennium. 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 SCC is a mental health treatment facility for Level 3 sex offenders who have completed their prison sentences. Residents are ordered by the court to live at the facility on McNeil Island until they are deemed eligible to transition back into society. As previously reported by The News Tribune, for more than 100 years the island was a federal prison that held infamous convicts such as Charles Manson and Mickey Cohen. In 1981 the facility became a state corrections center and officially closed as the oldest prison facility in the Northwest in 2011 after 136 years.
Wallace said he earned his master’s degree in forensic psychology with an interest in studying sex offenders and tendencies to reoffend. Although on paper his position is his dream job, Wallace said burnout, a heavy workload and violence from residents has left staff in an exhausting and sometimes dangerous position.
“If they really supported these people’s rehabilitation, making the community safer, they would invest more in people that work there,” he said.
“I believe everybody deserves a second chance, and I’m totally for that, but we do house very violent offenders that are violent people,” added Andrew Blatman, a residential rehabilitation counselor who has worked at SCC for eight years. “[Assaults against staff do] happen from time to time.”
Residential rehabilitation counselor Corey Gibson has been working at SCC for eight years. He said staffing issues have been especially pronounced since the pandemic when many staff walked out because they didn’t want to get vaccinated against COVID-19, and others had to work overtime to pick up the slack.
“Retention has just been an issue ever since because now we’re cutting corners on a lot of things,” he said. “People are understaffed and undertrained and underpaid, and they’re tired.”
In an email to The News Tribune, Mackley said there are 340 permanent classified employees working at SCC with an annual average compensation of $76,420. Those who work on the floor as security guards or residential rehabilitation counselors, 176 employees in all, make less than that.
Residential rehabilitation counselors make on average between $64,600 and $72,760, depending on experience, according to the state. Security guards make on average between $64,900 and $71,500.
Wallace said a lot of people forget or just don’t know about the SCC on McNeil Island, which is why they wanted to have a presence in front of Steilacoom City Hall. He told The News Tribune he makes closer to $55,000 a year and often works 16-hour shifts and overtime to make ends meet.
“It’s important for us to be able to do this job, to make sure that we are safe, that [the public] is safe and that our residents are safe,” Wallace said. “We don’t want to have to walk off jobs. We don’t want to have to strike, we don’t want to have to make these demands. It’s up to the state to meet us where we are and understand that we can no longer continue to do the job they want us to do for low wages.”
This story was originally published September 11, 2024 at 5:45 AM.
