Dear Fellow WSF Members,Greetings and Happy Columbus Day! As you know the Washington Management Service at the Washington StateFerries has lowered the manning levels on several of the vessels in its fleet operating throughout the Puget Sound tothe bare minimum Certificate of Inspection (COI) level. This violates language in our contract with ferry managementand completely disregards the safe and efficient transit of the millions of passengers and vehicles that we move back and forth across these waters every year. We naturally pursued our legal options and filed a grievance which went toarbitration challenging this new reduced manning implementation. Unfortunately we lost this arbitration. This sameWashington Management Service at ferry management filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) against the IBU to prevent us from introducing the manning issue in our recent contract arbitration (see attached ULP and contract proposal from ferry management). More than likely, this issue will not be resolved until the next biennium unless theUSCG decides in the passengers' favor. Until that happens it's clearly time to sound the alarm!
BACKGROUND
Let us be clear. This problem was not created by the IBU, MMP, or MEBA. This is a dangerous policy decision on the part of the Washington Management Service at the Washington State Ferries. After several failed attempts to reducemanning in negotiations, mediations, and arbitrations over the past several years, WSF management has manufacturedan operational budget problem at the ferries by under-budgeting for the deck department in the 2011-2013 biennium.They chose to present a budget to the Office of Financial Management (OFM) back in the fall of 2010 with a deck department operating at the COI. Every biennial operating budget prior to this one was based upon the contractuallyagreed upon manning levels. This fabricated shortfall, disingenuous at best, is the source of the most recent manningassault.There is a lot of confusion over the March 2011 Memo of Understanding (MOU) signed by the IBU, MMP, andMEBA. Let's review the context that led up to that MOU. Prior to the 2011 legislative session, the OFM declared our arbitrated economic award unfeasible much like they had in the previous contract arbitration in 2008. State revenueshad been rapidly imploding since 2008 and the state budget was roughly 4.5 billion dollars in the red before the startof the 2011 session and rose to about 5.3 billion by mid-session. The legislature in fact met in a Special Session inDecember of 2010 to try to backfill the shortfall in the previous biennium budget so they could start in the newsession focusing solely on the new budget problem. Let's also not forget that in the previous year and in the background of this budget nightmare was the KING 5 series “Waste on the Water,” which put a huge target on all of our backs. With one-sided details that could only have been provided by a management insider, the Governor andcertain legislators vowed to “fix the ferry system problem.” Gregoire, Haugen, and Clibborn whose prior re-electionswe wholeheartedly supported, seemed all too eager to jump on the Suzanna Frame bandwagon.
BUDGETS ARE ABOUT DECISIONS
Rather than attempt to close some of the 5 billion dollars in annual corporate tax loopholes across the state, theGovernor and legislature aggressively went after wages and benefits for state employees. For members of our bargaining unit and the other ferry unions, of course, that meant Senator Haugen and Representative Clibborn's personal jihad against us. These chairs of their respective transportation committees have had at least ten years tosolve the funding problem plaguing the ferry system since the loss of MVET dollars. WSF were told to save 20millions dollars and rather than downsize any of the bureaucratic creep of the Washington Management Service at the2901 Building or some of their sacred cows like the WINS Dispatch System or the ever expanding ferry reservationsystem, ferry management chose to go after the employees that literally do the core business of the ferry system.Remember this was when George Capacci was promoted to the number two position in the Executive Department of the ferry system, a position that was rarely occupied in the previous twenty years. They saw the economic crisis as an
opportunity, as a green light, to attack our wages, benefits, working conditions, and manning levels. Budgets are aboutmaking decisions and management's utter contempt for IBU and other union represented employees is now quite clear in view of this recent history. In short, it has marked the beginning of their union busting war against us.Since our previous arbitrated contract award was voided by OFM, the law required us to go back to the table with theLabor Relation's Office (LRO) and reopen our contract negotiations. Everything in that award, and a lot more, was upfor grabs. We had to settle to Gregoire's satisfaction, per the OFM, or else we would be fighting to prevent Haugenand her minions from legislating (converting our entire cba into state law) a far worse contract including the loss of seniority, the right to collectively bargain, as well as a reduction in wages and benefits. After TA-ing on a number of issues to prevent the nightmare from Haugen etc., the final issue that needed to be resolved was manning aboard WSFvessels. They demanded COI aboard every vessel. The compromise MOU that was signed by all three marine unions,was for all four parties to go before the USCG to present our respective arguments and have them rule on what theappropriate manning levels should be. This happened in the 11
th
hour of negotiations with the LRO. Not only did wenot have the time to vote the membership on any of these issues, we were in a position of either working out acompromise or having Mary Margaret Haugen write us a contract of her choosing in a “title only” Senate bill.Despite all this misdirected animosity, it's important to point out that we did have help in Olympia. A number of members in the House and Senate went above and beyond to thwart the worst of the legislative attacks against us.Representative Mike Sells from District 38 and members of his Labor and Workforce Development Committee in theHouse led the effort. We can't thank them enough. Be sure to support Mike and the members of his committee in their re-election bids this November 6
th
(Our endorsement list will be out soon). We also had a tremendous amount of support from the labor community around us and organizations like Jobs With Justice and other community groupsthat realize the lopsided regressive tax structure in this state has been a disaster waiting to happen.
MANAGEMENT'S MOU
What followed in this past year was a blatantly dishonest attempt by George Capacci to manipulate the wording fromthe original MOU in a new letter to the USCG to begin the manning review process. Drafts went back and forth inwhich the marine unions would not sign. Eventually Mosely signed a letter and unilaterally sent it to the USCG which put the review process in motion. The unions wrote the USCG objecting to this and were surprised when Moselyinformed us that they would be implementing new reduced manning aboard the three classes of vessels currentlyoperating at COI since the start of the summer schedule.
ENOUGH ONE-SIDED SACRIFICE
Dedicated employees like you have sacrificed plenty to help save the state during an economic catastrophe none of you caused. Since even before the Governor declared an economic emergency in 2008, you’ve given up much to savethe state. Increases in health insurance premiums and more than 11 percent in wages have been sacrificed whileworkloads have now gone up due to the reduction in manning
on both the docks and the vessels
. The ferry unionslearned recently that the legislated reduction of 3% to all state employees since July 1
st
2011 was mitigated with amonthly temporary salary reduction (TSR) leave of 5.2 hours. Thousands of general government employees weregiven this TSR Leave. WSF represented employees had to take the 3% cut, yet were never even offered the TSR Leave in negotiations. In addition those same general government employees do not have the 3% cut applied to anyovertime hours. WSF represented employees do. Since we were the first to sacrifice our hard earned compensation,falling further behind the state's wage and benefit survey for our industry, shouldn't we be the first to be made whole?
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Please join your union's effort to sound the alarm on this assault on safety and good judgment. Start by showing your solidarity and proudly and prominently wearing our contract campaign buttons
“IBU Will S.T.R.I.K.E. for Safety”
and
“Ferry Workers United”
. Wearing these buttons is not a campaign in and of itself. It merely showsmanagement that we are going on offense and getting organized. They don't like it when we're organized. It makesthem nervous. If our campaign needs to become a fight for our recent cba arbitration award with OFM or thelegislature this winter, we'll be ready because WE RUN THE FERRIES! This of course is not an invitation to strikefor that would be illegal for state ferry employees per
RCW 47.64.140 -Strikes, work stoppages, and lockouts prohibited.(1)
It is unlawful for any ferry system employee or any employee organization, directly or indirectly, to induce,instigate, encourage, authorize, ratify, or participate in a strike or work stoppage against the ferry system.
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