Republicans want union contract talks open to the public
A bill to require that closed-door collective bargaining talks with state employees be open to the public will likely receive a vote by the full Washington Senate this week.
Split along party lines, the Senate Ways & Means Committee recommended Tuesday that the Republican bill go to the GOP-dominated Senate for a vote. However, it is unlikely the Democratic-controlled House will pass that bill, except if Senate budget negotiators insert this into the Legislature’s sluggish 2015-2017 budget talks.
The bargaining bill by Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia and one of the Senate’s budget negotiators, would also require any employee raises stay within the state’s four-year budget plan and not exceed 3 percent per biennium in overall additional costs for the state.
The background of this legislation is that the executive branch and the state’s public employee unions negotiated a pay raise package worth an extra $583 million in the 2015-2017 budget. Normally, the Legislature approves such a package as a whole, or votes it down as a whole to send the administration and unions back to the bargaining table. However, Senate Republicans want to trim the pay package by at least $75 million in order for those salaries to fit into their $38 billion budget proposal for 2015-2017 without installing new taxes.
http://crosscut.com/2015/05/republicans-want-union-contract-talks-open-to-the-public/
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