State employees around Washington walked out of their jobs Tuesday afternoon, amid stalled contract negotiations in which they've been bargaining for wage increases and improved conditions to address what they describe as widespread staffing shortages.
The nearly 50,000 public workers from the Washington Federation of State Employees, represented by American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 28, have been negotiating a new contract with the state's Office of Financial Management since April.
Ashley Fueston, the vice president of the federation of state employees, said members couldn't discuss specific details of negotiations while they're ongoing. But she said management was trying to take away "components of compensation that would have significant negative impacts on recruitment and retention," such as incentivizing overtime.
She said if the state goes through with proposed cuts, even more workers would likely leave their jobs. According to a news release from AFSCME, the state has seen 40% of its workforce turn over in the past eight years due to resignations. The news release also said that the Office of Financial Management has proposed "what amounts to a pay cut for WFSE members' 2025-2027 union contracts."
Hayden Mackley, a spokesperson for the Office of Financial Management, said in an email the state has "confidence in the bargaining process and that we will come to a successful resolution."
Mackley said the proposed cuts that AFSCME referred to were likely temporary pay increases for the current biennium, which are set to expire on June 29, 2025.
Mackley said the state's records don't show 40% turnover.
"However, we recognize that there are pockets of higher turnover and in response, the state has continued to identify and prioritize investments in pay increases for job classifications with the highest recruitment and retention needs," Mackley said.
The conditions have become unsustainable for many, workers said. AFSCME said in a news release that workers from the University of Washington and the UW Medical Center recently started a food bank to help each other out — in particular, food service workers who are facing food insecurity.
The employees span a wide range of professions: They include food service workers across state facilities, state transportation workers, state hospital workers and University of Washington employees. Workers from many of the state agencies described staffing crises that have affected their organizations in unique ways. Employees from Western State Hospital and the Department of Children, Youth and Families said they are already operating below adequate staff levels, which has resulted in assaults on workers.
Marie Buss, a psychiatric social worker at the state hospital, said the state's proposal hurts not just the staff who aren't being compensated fairly, but patients as well.
"We have high turnover, a lot of people doing mandatory overtime, and you can just see that staff are burned out, they are tired because no one wants to stay due to low compensation," she said.
Andrew Stubblefield, a Washington State Department of Transportation highway maintenance worker and union member, said in a news release that unfilled positions for highway maintenance workers have resulted in more frequent "close calls" when employees are out doing mobile traffic control.
"Whenever we're short, even one person, we can't get a lot of that done," said Stubblefield.
Dennis Lucas, a custodian at the state hospital, said the state has offered "nice words" but no action.
"This is custodian appreciation week. We just had a pizza party downstairs," he said. "But we never get any particular action. The biggest thing we hear from them is they don't have the money."
But Lucas said workers are frustrated by that excuse, when they see the state spending money elsewhere, such as on new construction and frequently empty shuttle buses.
Buss, the psychiatric social worker, said employees don't want to leave their jobs.
"We just want a fair contract and to be heard all the way to Olympia," she said.
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