DSHS Furlough Bargaining

Monday was the first day the bargaining team met with management to discuss the management proposal to further furlough state workers. Union representatives asked a series of questions to determine whether there were other ways to meet the budget reduction ordered by the Governor. Discussions ensued. Among them, a number of suggestions were made that management said they would take a look at.

The union representatives were looking for the flexibility in scheduling that Secretary Dreyfus previously stated was in her interest as well as ours. Instead members were reporting to their team that the dates had been decided and managers were already working on implementation. In addition, there were reports that managers were planning to use on-call employees to replace furloughed workers. There were questions as to whether the plans would actually achieve the stated savings.

State workers need protections in the agreement language. We want to allow workers to work with their managers to determine which hours will be furlough. If workers can opt to take a day of a pre-scheduled vacation period, it relieves the staffing issues in 24/7 facilities where short staffing is unsafe. State employees who are furloughed should not have their probationary period extended. We want to make sure a furlough day is no more than 8 hours for a full time employee and that less than full time workers are treated proportionately. We would like to protect workers who earn the least money. We want to insure that overtime exempt employees are not forced to carry the same workload in a furlough period as they are during a regular work period. These are just a few of the many issues that were not resolved on Monday.

We will go back to bargaining tomorrow and are hopeful that an agreement can be achieved. The team was deeply disappointed in the outcome on Monday and know that their sisters and brothers are counting on them to bring an element of fairness and reasonableness into the process.

Thank you to the members who are working on this issue. Due to management's declaration that the furloughs will prevent 160 employees from joining the ranks of the 380 they say will be laid off, and realizing that these furloughs result in a wage reduction to a workforce that is already struggling financially, this team is under a lot of pressure. Your comments are welcome.