Corrections Staff Favor New Union Teamsters Gain Big Victory In Vote Over Representation

Thu., Dec. 18, 1997

By Hannelore Sudermann hannelores@spokesman.com

The Teamsters are the apparent winners in the bid to represent Department of Corrections workers, one of the largest groups of public employees in the state.

In the vote counted Monday, 1,481 out of about 3,900 DOC workers who cast ballots voted for Teamsters Union representation.

Only 818 voted to keep the current union, the Washington Public Employees Association, and 189 voted not to have union representation.

WPEA officials said they will not contest the vote. The election will be certified by the Washington State Department of Personnel after a 5-day appeal period.

The Teamsters are ready to begin work, said Patrick Swanson, secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Union Local No. 313 in Tacoma. “We’ll go down to the different facilities, break the workers into units and get rolling,” he said.

In addition to negotiating a new contract to succeed the one with WPEA which expired last month, the top issues in the election and the ones to be addressed first include proposals to guarantee that workers with the most seniority get first crack at changing their shifts, improved retirement plans and ending the state’s unrestricted use of part-time employees, Swanson said.

The WPEA says achieving those changes will not be easy.

“They think the Teamsters will come in and change the system overnight,” said Eugene St. John, executive director of the WPEA. “Frankly, I’ve been around state government for 25 years and it’s not as if our union and the other affiliated unions have not been trying to fix it over the years.

“There is no quick fix,” he said. “There’s going to be a sad reality they’ll be facing here in the next year or two.”

Washington’s DOC workers have changed unions a number of times in the past few decades.

The DOC workers, which include guards, maintenance workers, and food and health service employees, make up one of the largest bargaining units of public employees in the state.

About 450 DOC employees work at Airway Heights.

, DataTimes

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Corrections Staff Favor New Union Teamsters Gain Big Victory In Vote Over Representation

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