State lawmakers writing rules to govern collective bargaining with their staff

A clearer path is emerging for nearly 400 employees of the Washington Legislature to form unions and negotiate contracts starting this Spring.

Legislation under consideration in the House and Senate identifies which workers would be eligible to unionize and which topics could, and could not be, collectively bargained.

Authors said while there are differences to resolve on the scope of non-negotiable matters, the bill provides bargaining rights to a broader group of legislative staff than any other state.

“With this law, we will have the most expansive collective bargaining law for any Legislature in the country,” House Majority Leader Joe Fitzgibbon, D-Burien, told the House Labor and Workplace Standards Committee on Friday.

With a 2022 law, Washington joined Oregon, Maine and a handful of other states to allow employees of the House, Senate and legislative agencies to unionize and collectively bargain. 

Starting May 1, legislative workers can petition to form unions and, if successful, begin bargaining. Any completed agreements would take effect on July 1, 2025.

The collective bargaining law – which majority Democrats pushed through over the objections of Republicans – also created the Office of State Labor Relations.

Last fall, Debbie Brookman, director of the labor relations office, delivered a 100-page analysis to lawmakers of how the process should proceed. Her effort served as a template for House Bill 2325 and Senate Bill 6194, each of which received a public hearing this week.

Full-time partisan employees in the House of Representatives and Senate – which covers staff of lawmakers and the Democratic and Republican caucuses – plus any additional partisan staff hired each session, would be eligible to form a union under the bills. And there should be separate bargaining units in each chamber.

That doesn’t cover everyone. Those working in the Office of Program Research and Senate Committees, where the nonpartisan analyses of bills are produced, are not eligible to unionize. Neither are temporary employees, including casual employees, interns, and pages.

Employees of the House and Senate administration could unionize. So too could non-managerial workers in Legislative Support Services, Legislative Service Center and Office of the Code Reviser, who do not work full time on drafting and finalizing legislation during a session.

The Chief Clerk of the House and Secretary of the Senate would be the employers for the purpose of contract talks.

The Public Employment Relations Commission would oversee elections for union representation, certify the bargaining units, and resolve disputes that may arise in the course of negotiating agreements. The commission is the independent state agency that carries out Washington’s collective bargaining laws and resolves disputes involving employees of the state, local governments and schools.

Off the table

Some aspects of legislative operations would be off-limits for bargaining under the proposals. Those include the length of legislative sessions, the number of committees in either chamber, and the calendar and legislative deadlines set for any session.

Under one provision, legislative employees would not be granted “the right to strike, participate in a work stoppage, or refuse to perform their official duties.” 

With the proposed bills, legislative employees are at-will workers and the employer’s right to hire, terminate, and promote employees is not subject to bargaining.

Labor leaders object to that provision as well as one that prevents bargaining on overtime.

Joe Kendo of the Washington State Labor Council told the House panel on Friday that by excluding overtime and “just cause” standards for hiring and firing from negotiations  “you’re seriously killing the balance at the table” between workers and the employer.

“These are issues that have the most impact on people,” he said.

And not addressed in the bill is whether employees can engage in union activities like rallies and lobbying for funding and ratification of a collective bargaining agreement.

Brookman sought direction from the Legislative Ethics Board on the issue as she worked on the report.

But that panel, after extensive discussions at several meetings, could not reach consensus on an advisory opinion. Rather, members said they would wait to see if they receive any complaints on which to render an opinion.

No one raised the issue in hearings this week.

“We have not taken on that question in this bill,” said Sen. Derek Stanford, D-Bothell, sponsor of the Senate bill. “It needs to be resolved.”