The Washington Federation of State Employees has asked the state to reinstate all employees who had been terminated for refusing to pay dues or fees they owe under "fair share" union security provisions in the Federation's contracts that took effect in July 2005.
The union is also asking the state to make no further terminations at this time.
The union called for the reinstatement and moratorium on terminations while it corrects several technical mistakes in a notice sent in May 2005 to all 38,000 state employees covered by Federation contracts. It delivered the formal request Tuesday afternoon to the state Labor Relations Office.
The technical mistakes center on the union's notice of expenditures that explains which expenditures are germane to collective bargaining or representation activities and which are not.
For example, while the May 2005 notice correctly informed employees that the breakdown of expenditures had been verified by an independent auditor, the auditor's formal certification to that effect should have been included in the notice.
Because of the defects in that notice, the Federation will be sending out a corrected notice for the 2005-2006 fiscal year. This corrected notice will give fee payers a renewed opportunity to file objections. And that has prompted the union's request to reinstate terminated employees and make no further terminations pending distribution of the corrected notice.
"The technical errors in last year's notice in no way call into question the principle, embodied in state law governing state employees and in our contracts, that all bargaining unit employees covered by the contracts are expected to help pay the cost of union representation and collective bargaining, which benefits all employees, whether or not they are union members," said Greg Devereux, executive director of the Washington Federation of State Employees.
"The constitutionality of the agency fees and representation fees have been repeatedly upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court and is not an issue here."
end WFSE hotline
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