Bargaining vote was a waste

In response to the Freedom Foundation’s Dec. 23 op-ed on so-called “open collective bargaining,” several disturbing facts need to be addressed.

First, the two Spokane County commissioners who passed the resolution seemingly waited until their colleague, Commissioner Kuney, was out of town before calling the vote. Commissioner Kuney hadn’t even been briefed on the language of the resolution, according to an article in the Spokesman-Review.

The commissioners also revealed that they did not even discuss the idea with the union — their bargaining partner — before passing the resolution. Hardly a transparent process. Events get even murkier when we consider that Ron Valencia, a recent employee at the Freedom Foundation, enjoys special access for pushing that group’s anti-union agenda in his new position as assistant to our county commissioners.

Lastly, the resolution is actually dead on arrival. The Public Employee Relation Commission invalidated a similar resolution in Lincoln County because it was illegal under state law to unilaterally impose preconditions on bargaining. This means the Spokane County resolution will never be implemented, which the Freedom Foundation and commissioners had to have known beforehand.

Looking at it “transparently,” the county wasted taxpayer resources and time and violated its duty to work with its employees, all to give the self-serving Freedom Foundation some cheap publicity.

Andrew Biviano

Spokane