Legislative update Week 3

On Monday, January 23, the legislature heard SB 5328, a bill to give public safety telecommuters access to the Public Safety Employee Retirement System. We heard testimony from 911 operators and dispatchers about the ongoing trauma they experience. WPEA shared testimony about how understaffed the Washington State Patrol communication centers are. Remember that the communication center in Wenatchee closed last year due to understaffing, leaving the remaining centers to pick up the slack.  

There has been some pushback on the bill, suggesting that it won’t solve the whole staffing crisis that public safety telecommunicators are experiencing. The bill’s sponsor, Senator Kevin Van De Wege acknowledged that this wasn’t the complete solution, and we agree. But it will help. We can’t afford to keep losing people serving this vital public safety role. 

This Friday, January 27, two House committees are scheduled to advance bills that we are working on. HB 1187 is the bill to protect the confidentiality of union member communications, and the House Civil Rights and Judiciary committee is expected to vote it out of committee. We have incorporated many of the concerns of employers, but none that compromise the core of the bill: it is vital that union members be able to have frank and confidential conversations with their union reps and stewards, without fear that the conversations could be used against them later in court. 

Also Friday, the House Labor and Workplace Standards Committee is scheduled to vote out HB 1200, a bill that standardizes how employers provide employee data to unions. We’ve been working with a broad coalition of public employee unions and employers to make sure that employers are providing our unions with consistent data in a usable format. 

Next week, the Washington State labor council is holding their annual legislative conference and lobby day, where hundreds of union members form across the state will descend on Olympia to speak with their representatives about the priorities that unite working families in Washington. For those of you who are coming, I look forward to seeing you there. If you aren’t making it next week but want to come to the legislature a different time, send me an email at Seamus@WPEA.org and we’ll schedule a time. 
 
That’s all for now. Remember that you are your union, this union is you, and we all do better when we all do better. 

Thanks for listening.