Our View: Closed-door unions

It took Judge Christopher A. Washington only four economical paragraphs to make his point last week when he ruled that the public has a legitimate interest in seeing the written proposals as well as Washington state agencies’ notes from collective bargaining sessions with public employee groups.

“These records are of interest to the citizens of the State,” he wrote. Contrary to what several public employee unions had contended, they are not exempt from the state’s public records law.

Good thing. When the state Office of Financial Management sits down to negotiate contracts with public employee bargaining units, it is representing the citizens of the state and the negotiators are making decisions about how public dollars will be spent. Taxpaying citizens have every right to know what deals are being reached and why.

The problem with King County Superior Court Judge Washington’s decision is that it doesn’t kick in until after it’s too late for citizens to do anything about those deals.

The issue arose last year when a conservative think tank, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, asked for copies of the notes produced by OFM during bargaining sessions and of any proposals the unions had offered to the state during their contract negotiations. OFM was willing, but seven of the unions that represent various state workers protested.

The unions went so far as to go to court to prohibit OFM from turning the requested records over to the foundation.

They contended that those closed-door sessions should be protected from prying eyes, that their bargaining status would somehow be compromised if the public became aware of what the public workers and public agencies were planning to do with public funds. In short, the unions argued that the notes, proposals and counterproposals produced in those sessions are “of no legitimate concern to the public.”

Clearly that information is of legitimate concern to the public. It affects the level of taxes we all pay and the level of services we receive in return. That’s why the public nature of those records has long been recognized in many states. That’s why in some states, the sessions themselves are open to the public.

So Judge Washington’s decision was welcome as far as it went. Unfortunately, he also declared that the records’ release could be withheld until after the Legislature approves the budget that implements the bargaining agreements. That means that citizens can dig out the information only when it’s too late to do more than complain about what’s already been done.

At least his ruling assures a measure of public accountability. It doesn’t do much to allow effective public action.