Union Activity Rising Among Washington’s Public Sector Managers
By Seattle Business Magazine January 22, 2011
Washington state is prominently cited in a Wall Street Journal article about the rise of collective bargaining units among public sector managers.
Between 2008 and 2010, according to the article, there were 43 peititions to the states’s Public Employment Relations Commission by unions seeking to represent supervisory workers. That was up from 23 petitions the previous three years.
Among the groups in Seattle that have formed collective bargaining units are prosecutors as well as supervisors at Seattle City Light.
Is it appropriate for government managers to engage in collective bargaining? Collective bargaining among school principals has resulted in practices that many believe have not been in the interests of our students. One has to wonder whether collective bargaining among public sector managers is really in the public interests. At a time when we need to be promoting more efficient government, collective bargaining among managers could result in high cost and less efficiency.