Spokane City Council inserts itself into future labor negotiations

The Spokane City Council doesn’t want any more surprises during labor negotiations.

On Feb. 13, the City Council voted 5-2 to require that a Council liaison sit in and keep the Council apprised during future collective bargaining negotiations. No tentative agreements can be offered without the Council first having a chance to weigh in.

As part of the same ordinance, the City Council and the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission will hold an annual public hearing to solicit feedback on police accountability in the city. Previous labor negotiations with police have been derailed repeatedly over the last decade because of disagreements about the ombudsman office’s authority to independently investigate police conduct.

Council members Jonathan Bingle and Michael Cathcart voted against the ordinance, despite expressing some general appreciation for its intent.

The city of Spokane maintains labor agreements with eight organizations representing nearly 2,000 employees, including two unions each for the fire and police departments, two managerial and professional unions, a union covering prosecuting attorneys and another union for other positions.

During labor negotiations, the unions and the city administration strike a tentative agreement, which then goes to the City Council for final approval.

“There’s nothing worse than when Council turns down an agreement that’s been negotiated,” Council President Breean Beggs said shortly before the vote. “If there’s been feedback, people would know that’s coming ahead of time.”

It’s happened before. In 2012, the Spokane City Council rejected a tentative labor contract with firefighters, with then-Councilman Steve Salvatori casting the deciding vote over concerns about a lack of transparency during negotiations.

Fights over independent oversight have also repeatedly torpedoed contracts with city police. In 2013, the City Council rejected a tentative contract agreement with the Spokane Police Guild, citing a lack of independent investigative authority for the ombudsman. In 2020, another tentative labor agreement was shot down for similar reasons.

City Council members have also expressed concern with the results of the latest round of labor negotiations, in which unions won wage increases of around 5%, rather than the standard 3% in line with the city’s typical revenue growth. Those wage increases have often been cited by Matt Boston, the Council’s budget liaison, and budget hawks on the council who have rung alarm bells about the sustainability of city finances.

The labor agreement signed last year with the Spokane firefighters union gave the city the green light to commence negotiations that would move all fire dispatch functions to Spokane Regional Emergency Communications. But the current city dispatchers were left in the lurch, as it was unclear whether they would still have jobs waiting for them at the regional center, rankling Councilwoman Karen Stratton in particular.

Having a Council representative in the room during negotiations would make the process more transparent, Beggs argued before the vote.

That new layer of transparency will not extend to the public, however. Reports about ongoing negotiations will be delivered to City Council members in closed meetings.

In 2019, around 77% of Spokane voters approved an amendment to the city’s charter that would have required collective bargaining be done in public. That change was subsequently held up in court for years, until the state Supreme Court ruled that the mandate was unconstitutional in December.

“People who want open public bargaining, you are in the majority in the community,” Bingle said. “But here we are.”

Though he said he was on the fence, Bingle ultimately voted against the ordinance. In an interview, Bingle said that, after recent concerns about transparency during negotiations with the firefighting union, Mayor Nadine Woodward’s administration had been working to better keep the Council apprised.

So long as that communication continues, the additional oversight seems like it would not significantly improve the process, he said. Rather, Bingle worried that having another person in the room could further slow negotiations, which have at times dragged on for years.

Cathcart, who was an advocate for the 2019 charter amendment, similarly appreciated the intent behind the ordinance. His vote in opposition was spurred in part by concerns that the state Supreme Court would continue to strike down laws to make negotiations more transparent.

Cathcart added that he asked for the new ordinance to be deferred an additional two weeks for more consultation from the city’s legal department.

Stratton noted that the ordinance had been discussed since October, and argued that the city had not prioritized quickly providing legal advice.

In a brief interview, Woodward said she “could live with” that added layer of Council oversight, but said that her administration proactively kept Beggs in the loop during negotiations last year.

She added that labor negotiations are the role of the city administration, and that the Council appeared to be trying to overstep its role.

“I am concerned about this council wanting to get more and more involved in the operations of the city organization,” Woodward said.