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Committee hears technical fix to allow interest arbitration for WMS members at DOC
Summary
House Bill 1068 would extend interest arbitration rights to Washington Management Service (WMS) employees at the Department of Corrections so those managers could use binding interest arbitration to resolve collective bargaining impasses.
House Bill 1068 received a brief committee hearing as a technical change to extend interest arbitration rights to Washington Management Service (WMS) members at the Department of Corrections. Supporters described the change as a targeted correction to prior legislation that intended to place DOC managers on the same arbitration footing as other DOC employees.
Committee staff explained interest arbitration is a binding process used when parties cannot resolve mandatory subjects of bargaining. Ben McCarthy briefed the committee that most DOC employees have interest arbitration except confidential employees, WMS and internal auditors; HB 1068 would add WMS members to the statute governing interest arbitration for DOC.
Brenda Weest of Teamsters Local 117, who testified in support, described the bill as a technical fix to an earlier law and said the original intent was to allow WMS employees to “participate in the same collective bargaining process that their other colleagues at the department do.” Union representatives and union members from the DOC bargaining unit urged passage to align bargaining processes and timelines.
The committee did not record a vote during the hearing; the bill was presented and supported by union witnesses and staff as a narrowly tailored statutory correction.
Lede closing: HB 1068 is a technical, narrowly scoped bill intended to add WMS DOC members to interest arbitration rights and align their bargaining process with other DOC employees.
