THE TRUTH ABOUT

CONTRACTING OUT

The WFSE continually harped on the “Contracting Out” issue in the year preceding the Bargaining Agreement negotiations. This created a lot of fear in the minds of many employees.

The relaxation of the laws regarding “contracting out” was a part of the “Reform Act of 2002” which the Union supported. The union thus supported the law that created the “contracting out crisis”.

According to the “WashingtonWorks” web site:

The Union Claim:

The WFSE “ Contract Ratification Alert” says the following:

“Contracting out protections

Your team fought for and won the right to keep contracting out a mandatory subject of bargaining. They stood firm and refused to accept management’s proposal that would have allowed unlimited contracting out of bargaining unit jobs. So, the management contracting out article is gone – and the unions mandatory bargaining language prevails”

The real truth about contracting out:

The final agreement document, signed by both the Union and the State includes reference to a “Contracting” section:

The Contracting out article (as posted on the OFM Web site) contains the following language:

(This information is not in the WFSE version of the Bargaining Agreement.)

So, the truth is, the UNION and the STATE agreed there were no provisions on contracting out. The union failed to inform the employees of this. They instead are claiming that the State withdrew from the process.

The Union "Contract Ratification Alert" contains several false and misleading claims about contracting out.

Claim: “Your team fought for and won the right to keep contracting out a mandatory subject of bargaining”

Truth: The bargaining agreement contains NO language about contracting out other than that there is nothing in the agreement about contracting out. The “mandatory subjects of bargaining” are fixed in RCW law, and remain unchanged – period.

Claim: “The union’s mandatory bargaining language prevails.”

Truth: There is NO language about contracting out in the agreement. Existing RCW and WAC regulations prevail. See the links at the end of this section for the REAL detail.

Claim: “They (the team) stood firm and refused to accept management’s proposal what would have allowed unlimited contracting out of bargaining unit jobs”

Truth: RCW and WAC provisions govern what jobs can and cannot be contracted out, and under what circumstances – see the detail below. Again, since the bargaining agreement contains NO language about contracting out, the existing provisions prevail.

The WashingtonWorks web site contains the following overview of the contracting out process put in place by the Reform Act of 2002:

Washington Works Contracting Out PDF

The following link provides answers to many questions about contracting out:

http://www.ga.wa.gov/competitivecontracting/faq.htm