2006 POLICY HIGHLIGHTER

June 12, 2006

Taxpayers shouldn’t pay union negotiators
State agreed to pay for 828 days for union negotiators in 2004

By Ryan Bedford

In late April, the Labor Relations Office (LRO) confirmed the state will subsidize union negotiation costs during its current round of contract negotiations. The state agreed to continue paying the salaries of employees who leave their jobs to represent their union during negotiations, a practice known as release time.

The state offered generous amounts of release time—828 days—to union negotiators during the 2004 round of negotiations. This included eight to fourteen days of paid leave to over sixty union negotiators belonging to the unions that agreed to preliminary ground rules for negotiations.

Union	Bargaining Team Members	Days of Release Time	Total Days of Release Time
UFCW	6	8	48
IFPTE	8	12	96
Coalition	10	12	120
Teamsters Local 117	14	12	168
WPEA	7	14	98
SEIU	14	11	154
WFSE	1,152 hrs of release time		144 days
Total			828 Days

What is release time?

Release time is paid or unpaid leave given to union representatives to conduct union business. Union business permitted during release time can include day-to-day union administration, employer/employee relations—such as resolving workplace grievances to negotiating contracts—and many other activities.

Some public employers grant fully paid leave, some grant no paid leave, but most fall somewhere in-between. For example, the Vancouver School District agreed to pay half of the salary and all the benefits of a union official designated by the union to perform its activities. Another common arrangement requires the public employer to continue paying full salaries and benefits to union officials while the union covers the cost of substitute and temporary employees.

Is release time legally justified?

Unions clearly benefit from release time arrangements because the agreements relieve them of having to pay their negotiators. However, the benefit to the state is not so obvious.

Various official statements have rationalized release time as a good use of state resources. When considering a case involving the state’s collective bargaining laws, the state Ethics Board wrote that the legislature passed the laws to improve the relationship between public employers and employees.

The Board said the legislature believed collective bargaining was in the public interest, allowing the state to use paid time and resources to support the process.

Attorney General Opinions have also affirmed that release time can be a legal use of state resources. The state can pay released employees who are “providing a service of value to their employer at the same time as they [are] serving the other employees whom they [are] representing in the bargaining process.”

However, as noted above, release time is permitted only when the state is benefited by the activity. The AGO noted, “…any such compensated ‘released time’ for union activities [is] …legally permissible only to the extent that the activities involved are of some demonstrable benefit to the… employer.” Therefore, if the employer does not benefit, release time is an unconstitutional gift of public funds and property.

Under this standard, state negotiators have great leeway in granting release time. They may grant release time to earn the good will and cooperation of union negotiators, or to avoid hard line negotiations or strikes. State negotiators who favor unions may manipulate the system to collaborate with union officials to the union’s benefit.

Release time is a misuse of state resources

Notwithstanding the legal justifications laid out above, release time is an unaccountable gift of taxpayer dollars to unions. When asked, the Labor Relations Office said it has no way to determine how much the agreements cost taxpayers during the 2004 round of negotiations. Using the average union worker salary for the 2005 fiscal year, the state paid approximately $126,684. If, however, released workers earned more than the average salary the state could have paid much more.

Unions are already compensated for representation activities by their membership. Most public employees are forced to pay for their union’s representation services in order to keep their jobs. Courts have ruled collective bargaining is one of just a few legitimate activities unions can force workers to pay for. (Unions cannot force workers to pay for political activism, lobbying or other non-bargaining activities.) Because unions are already compensated for representation services provided, taxpayers should not underwrite the same activities.

A union’s primary purpose is to promote its own interests even at the expense of the employer’s interests. It would seem, then, an inappropriate conflict of interest and breach of fiduciary duty for the state to pay the salaries of union negotiators who often work against the state’s interests.

Ultimately, when state negotiators grant release time and allow unions to shift the financial burden of its contract negotiations to the state, taxpayers get the short end of the stick.

Conclusion

The Labor Relations Office (LRO) has taken steps this year to reduce the amount of release time granted to state employees to negotiate the 2007-09 contract. While this is commendable, the LRO has declined to disclose how many days of release time it will grant or how much it will cost the state. As a result, taxpayers are funding secret negotiations with the union without being able to evaluate the benefit of this expense.

The state should not finance the union’s negotiators, particularly when the union is already charging its members for representation activities. The legislature can end union double-dipping and state officials can refuse demands for release time. Until then, the taxpayer-subsidized union books should be open to the public.

Ryan is a legal research assistant and labor policy analyst for EFF’s Labor Policy Center. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from Oak Brook College of Law and Government Policy and has trained with the Leadership Institute in Arlington, Virginia. Ryan has gained a broad range of experience while working for the California and Oregon legislatures, several public policy organizations and various political campaigns.

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