AFSCME/WFSE...the story behind the story in Washington State

Government Employee Unions Undemocratic, Unfair, Unsustainable « Publius Forum

This blog article linked above brings in the historical backdrop to my personal, direct and experiential membership in the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees (AFSCME)/Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) in Washington State as a state government social worker.

The rank and file in the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) were not clambering to their union representatives in 2004, "Hey, pass a collective bargaining bill in the legislature!" The union reps, and in particular, the one in my next of the woods, Don Barber was telling us this is going to be great! Inside the brick fortress in our oppressive maze of cubicles the feeling in the air was one of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

With supervisors in the state union the feeling had been in my time on the inside like being between a rock and a hard place. Rank and file attempts to utilize the union to improve the government system (and not by asking for more money) was met with resistance thus non-action was the result in attempting to improve services to the public...the taxpayer.

The union reps were friends with our union supervisors. What were supervisors even doing in the union? I got my masters in social work administration to improve the government system. I got pressure from my supervisor at that time not to take the "administrative" track in graduate school. Later I learned from one social worker moving up to the management level the requirements which by her accounting were you had to accept emotional abuse, work lots of overtime and you had to doorbell for the Democratic party.

I was a Democrat, I was a union member all my life and I was hugely appalled at this unwritten requirement to become a social work manager.

Needless to say I was never promoted to manager. I began my long journey of making whistle blower reports in 1998 (up through 2005) as well as reporting up my chain of command. Sitting in my boss' office for my weekly supervisory conference with a stack of child protective services referrals I was investigating in my lap, I had to wait while on the phone and on taxpayer money my boss discussed campaign strategy with the candidate whose campaign he was managing.

One year the legislature got wind of how terrible it was being a state employee and invited employees to testify to a legislative committee. Of course, I didn't get the invite because it came through the management channels. I happened to be watching TVW and lo and behold there testifying to the committee were my unit co-workers. How could they have not told me? Ah, yes, they were union employees, one a shop steward...all personal friends of our boss, a union supervisor.

One year in a lunch time celebration he bragged to the whole lot of us how he and his secretary knew how to break every personnel law on the books. Someone tried to mitigate his testimony because I was in the room and everyone knew I'd complain up the old chain of command. He said he didn't care that it would take five years to fire him and by then he'd be gone. He was right.

Once the mandatory collective bargaining bill was passed, employees were threatened with being fired if they didn't fill out that little card to have their dues automatically taken out of the their paychecks.

My recommendation to the Washington State legislature is to reverse what they did in 2004 and in the hearts of the rank and file they would be pleased. Right after the so called collective bargaining bill passed the union/management committee I was on in the child care licensing agency where I worked was immediately dissolved.

The romantic image many of us had of unions standing for justice and equality; and rights was certainly a mirage with AFSCME. If the legislature just reversed what they did, but add the piece that supervisors cannot belong to the union then it opens up the system for employees like me to utilize that creation for a bigger goal related to the health, safety and well-being of the public in Washington State. Before 2004 it was an option to belong or not belong, make that so again.

Do it with all the so called collective bargaining unions that came about because of bills in the legislature including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) whose been riding that gravy train for sometime.

The belief is that the unions brought about the 8 hour work day. In reading a book about Henry Ford, it was Henry Ford who brought about the 8 hour work day for a very pragmatic reason. If you're going to sell cars you have to give people time to drive them.