Finding that controversial, Kitsap County Deputy Prosecutor Jacquelyn Aufderheide violated PERC requirements including an after-the-fact “torpedoing” of a tentative agreement reached between the Kitsap County labor negotiator and the Dispatchers’ Guild, in a recently released Kitsap County Decision 11675, PERC Hearing Examiner Guy Coss cited Aufderheide with a ULP and other rule violations.
In University of Washington, Decision 11414 (PSRA, 2012), the University of Washington’s Harborview Medical Center, operated a Patient Access Center (PAC). Employees in the PAC were part of a collective bargaining unit. In 2010, the employer decided to consolidate the operations of the PAC with another unit, into a new Contact Center (CC). Subsequently, the employer informed the PAC’s employees they would have to apply for positions in the CC and would not be part of the bargaining unit.
A PERC hearing examiner recently levied a significant financial penalty against Kitsap Transit for unilaterally dropping one of two health insurance plans offered to members of two different bargaining units of drivers for the agency represented by the Amalgamated Transit Union (“ATU”), Local 1384. The case, Kitsap Transit, Decision 11098-A (PECB, 2012) arose back in late 2010 when Kitsap Transit notified ATU, with just a few weeks warning, that it was no longer going to offer one of two insurance plans historically available to the members—the Premera PPO Plan—and that all the members would have to move over to the Group Health Plan. The loss in the plan was a significant reduction in benefits for the group as a whole, as around 50% of the membership was signed up under the PPO plan, which many members strongly preferred over the HMO product offered through Group Health.
In State Fish and Wildlife, Decision 11394 (PSRA, 2012), a hearing examiner with PERC recently granted a motion for partial summary judgment in favor of the State finding that it had not committed an unfair labor practice when it unilaterally decreased wages and health insurance premium contributions by 3% for members of the newly certified Fish and Wildlife Officers’ Guild. The case arose under a distinct set of facts, and under even more unique set of laws, applicable only to most State employees, that PERC found to give the State the authority to force the Guild and its members to be bound by a collective bargaining agreement for which it did not participate or agree upon.
