Comments

1

Our Mayor has done a wonderful thing here.

2

Ah, those progressive Democrats...

3

I wonder who Durkan is going to blame after this is implemented, and the beatings and the killings get worse. The city tends to pay out multimillion dollar wrongful death and police brutality suits without any kind of reckoning. Like who was in charge when the wheels were set in motion that led to the people being on the hook for yet another "rogue" or "bad apple" cop who nobody in a million years would have suspected would blow a dude away for no fucking reason. They'll probably respond with calls for "more training". More of the same standard cop curriculum that teaches them to be reactive and paranoid, drills into them the deadly threats around every corner and has one bottom line: "better to be judged by twelve than carried by six".

The joke is that in Washington, no cop will ever be judged by twelve, for anything. They already have a license to kill but that's not enough for SPOG and Durkan wants to pander to those animals. Probably hoping for higher office, and in 2024 or 2028 she'll need that pro-cop cred with Trumpers.

Fuck.

4

Install a prosecutor as mayor and she sides with the cops. Shocker.

Speak to your councilmember y'all. And perhaps Robart will say this is some bullshit, who knows.

5

During the late campaign, Mosqueda insisted that contract negotiations with SPOG should be held privately. She said making them public would corrupt the process and hence the end result. She even made this laughable centrist evasion: 'SPOG is a union, and I'm pro-union,' etc.

The negotations were conducted without public knowledge or input. And the end result is corrupt.

6

@5:

Well, SPOG IS a union, and I don't know of a single labor union anywhere that would agree to having their contract bargaining with management thrown open for public review and comment; that is literally antithetical to the entire process of negotiating a collective bargaining agreement. So, Mosqueda - who does know a thing or two about the process, given her labor background - has an entirely valid point, even if some people disagree with that process (and I'm going out on a limb and guessing most of those people have never been in a union, nor have they served on a negotiating committee, even if they have).

Now that the proposed contract is out in the open, feel free to criticize it all you like; but if you think for one second either unions or management would agree to having members of the general public micro-manage the negotiation process itself, simply shows how little you understand it, and why it's done the way it is.

7

@6

True enough, but a Government is not a business, no matter what the Republicans might tell you.

And since one party in the negotiations is a government, the records of the negotiation are subject to local disclosure laws. As a result, much of the contract negotiation -- proposals, counterproposals, etc -- are available to the public in WA some time after the fact, via public records requests.

You may not have heard of them before, but the list of states where the public has at least partial access to government employee union contract negotiations would include Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas.

8

@7: You hit the key point @6 made: “...are available to the public in WA some time after the fact, via public records requests.”

That’s much different from real-time access. @6 is correct; real-time access would ensure no contract negotiation could ever succeed.

Meanwhile, maybe our City Council could take a break from their ongoing butthurt over the EHT repeal long enough to give proper review to this proposed contract? They can reject it if they agree with the Oversight Board’s complaints.

9

@8

But somehow in a dozen states contracts with public employee unions do somehow get negotiated, despite some form of public access to the process as it happens.

How can this be?

Let's have a look at our neighbor to the east, for example:

https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/billbookmark/?yr=2015&bn=H0167

"7-2345A. NEGOTIATIONS IN OPEN SESSION. (1) All negotiations between a governing board and a labor organization shall be in open session and shall be available for the public to attend."

Are there no union contracts in Idaho anymore?

10

@10: Well, that certainly explains both Idaho’s well-deserved reputation as a union stronghold, and why there is such a large and consistent net flow of workers from Washington State every year.


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