6/17/09

    This is a special update of the Federation Hotline on Wednesday, June 17.

GENERAL GOVERNMENT CONTRACT RATIFIED

    The re-negotiated General Government contract covering 30,000 Federation-represented state employees has been ratified, 3,884-369. There were 19 invalid ballots.

    The vote count wrapped up today (June 17) at Federation headquarters in Olympia.

    Mail ballots from the remaining Higher Education Coalition campuses will be counted next, followed by Washington State University. Two coalition campuses have already held onsite voting. The latest: Everett Community College, where members ratified the contract 70-0 on June 16. Western Washington University ratified 111-14 on June 10.

    To recap, EWU BU I (92-18), EWU BU II (10-0), and UW Police Management (6-1) all ratified earlier.

The University of Washington contract is still in mediation.


IMPORTANT NOTICE/REMINDER FOR LABOR AND INDUSTRIES BARGAINING UNIT EMPLOYEES:

From Joe Nilsson: The notice and form for nominations for L&I Office Safety Committee members was mailed out to all L&I BU employees May 29. The deadline for making nominations was 5 p.m. on June 12. Some of you expressed a concern that you didn’t receive the notice and form. To address that issue, please be advised that the deadline for making nominations has been extended to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, June 23.

To make a nomination, you may contact Mary Donnelly, WFSE staff, at 1-800-562-6002 or via email at mary@wfse.org.  When making a nomination please provide the nominee's name and work location.  Be sure to confirm with the nominee(s) that he/she will serve if elected.

If there are the same number of nominees as there are positions available for a specific office (or floor in Headquarters) those individuals will be declared elected.  If there are more nominees than positions for a specific committee (or floor in Headquarters), an election will be held and ballots will be mailed by Friday, June 26.

SHARED LEAVE:

    Finally, a shared leave request:

IN NEED OF SHARED LEAVE: Julie Byrd, a workers compensation adjudicator 4 with the Department of Labor & Industries in Tumwater and a member of Local 443, is on leave to care for her son who is undergoing treatment for a tumor in a Seattle hospital.  If you can assist Julie with a donation of eligible unused annual leave or sick leave or all or part of your personal holiday, contact Candy Peppard at (360) 902-5705.

    That’s it for now.