OLYMPIA, WA – Attorney General Bob Ferguson pledged to labor leaders in July 2023 that if elected governor, he’d have their back as he set about to change the culture of state government.
“Each and every day, I will center your faces and your voices in every decision I make,” Ferguson told attendees at the Washington State Labor Council convention in SeaTac.
But the Democratic governor didn’t give public employee unions a heads up before he announced he wanted to furlough state government workers for one day a month and axe bonuses paid to teachers in order to help balance the budget.
Front-line workers and educators feel betrayed and frustrated that the man they helped elect wants to reduce their income while declining to endorse new or higher taxes on the state’s wealthiest individuals and largest corporations.
“They feel they were lied to. We have to stop being the ones having the budgets balanced on our backs,” said Mike Yestramski, president of the Washington Federation of State Employees, following a rally Monday at the Capitol held by those pushing the Legislature to tax the wealthy and big businesses to erase the multi-billion dollar deficit.
Yestramski called Ferguson a “pseudo Democrat” and added: “Budgets are moral documents. This is his moral test.”
Brendy Fountaine of Tukwila was working at the University of Washington and a member of United Auto Workers Local 4121 during part of last year’s gubernatorial campaign. It never crossed her mind that one of Ferguson’s first acts would be to pursue furloughs.
“I personally feel betrayed,” she said at the rally. “I was spending hours of my time calling up people I didn’t know to talk up Bob for governor.”
Dana Prigmore of Everett Community College didn’t attend the rally. She said she has appealed directly to her representatives in the 32nd Legislative District to reject the governor’s furlough idea.
“We cannot bear the burden of budget shortfalls at the expense of our livelihoods,” she said. “It just feels like once again, here we are, the lies that those in elected positions tell no matter which side of the aisle they stand.”
Furloughs and ‘Fergonomics’
Thus far, there’s been bipartisan skepticism of the use of furloughs to overcome a shortfall of as much as $6 billion in the next two-year budget.
Republican leaders would prefer Ferguson and the Legislature not fund collective bargaining agreements negotiated last year that lawmakers still need to green light. They argue that would save roughly $1.4 billion in general fund spending in the next budget.
Casting the bargaining agreements aside is a non-starter for majority Democrats. So too, it seems, are furloughs. New or higher taxes are on the menu for Democrats in the House and Senate, lawmakers said at Monday’s rally.
“I think you’ll be quite pleased when we roll out the budget and revenue package,” state Sen. Noel Frame, D-Seattle, told the cheering crowd.
Democrats in both chambers are expected to release their budget proposals in about a week.
House Democrats are looking at hiking taxes paid by mega businesses and financial institutions and expecting Ferguson to support them.
State Rep. Shaun Scott, D-Seattle, said he was mad that in a state where Democrats control the legislative and executive branches, people still had to congregate and fight to protect the working people.
People are rightfully angry at a federal government threatening to make draconian cuts in entitlements and undertaking mass layoffs, Scott said, adding that he was “not seeing any policies that are any better coming out of the governor’s office in this state.”
He skewered the governor’s proposals to furlough workers, hike tuition at state universities and spend $100 million more to hire cops.
“I think that’s called Fergonomics,” he said. “We think he can do better than he has been doing.”
Furlough facts
Ferguson embedded furloughs among the $4 billion in spending cuts he wants Democratic lawmakers to consider in their budget proposals.
When Ferguson first outlined the reductions he said he would honor new collective bargaining agreements with the state’s “hardworking public servants” that contain cost-of-living increases of 3% on July 1 and 2% on July 1, 2026.
In the same breath, he said most state employees should be furloughed one day a month during the next two-year budget cycle. The move would save $300 million. State troopers and staff working in prisons and state hospitals would be exempt.
And like former Gov. Jay Inslee, he called for ending bonuses paid to teachers who earn certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Cutting the extra pay, which ranges from $6,324 to $11,324, would save $310 million over the next two budgets.
State employees negotiated new collective bargaining agreements with Inslee’s administration. Ferguson’s proposal would effectively cost workers 5% in earnings, essentially wiping out the salary gains of the contract while the furloughs remain in effect, said Kurt Spiegel, executive director of the 50,000-member Washington Federation of State Employees.
Spiegel said they’re hoping the Legislature “doesn’t have an appetite for these furloughs. We’ve been down this road before. It didn’t work. It didn’t save the money they thought it would.”
He was referring to actions taken in the Great Recession by lawmakers and then governor Christine Gregoire, a Democrat, to require employees to take up to 10 unpaid days off.
Ferguson publicized his idea Feb. 27 but has left the next step up to legislative budget writers.
“Governor Ferguson’s proposals are intended to help them in their work. It is ultimately up to the Legislature what is included in the final budget,” Brionna Aho, Ferguson’s communications director, wrote in an email.
Most collective bargaining agreements contain language allowing management to implement furloughs, which are referred to as temporary layoffs in the contracts.
If the Legislature passes a separate bill or includes furlough savings in the budget, Aho said that management would formally notify the union and offer to bargain over the impacts.
This story first appeared on Washington State Standard.
