July 21, 2008
Collective bargaining in sunlight
When government officials in New York and public employee unions sit down to negotiate labor contracts, the public is shut out. That's not the case in seven states: Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas.
In four states, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Ohio, the public is entitled to documents related to negotiations, according to an article, "When Unions Negotiate with Governments: What Should the Public Know, When Should They Know It?" It is posted on the web site of the Washington, D.C-based Capital Research Center.
The article describes the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's efforts to obtain documents (proposals, counterproposals and the state's bargaining notes) after the state of Washington negotiated union agreements costing $1.6 billion, but before the contracts were ratified by the Legislature and signed by the governor.
After the state indicated it would release the documents, a coalition of 10 unions asked a judge to block their release, because making them public "will undermine collective bargaining by inviting the public, the media and other non-parties unions into the negotiation process."
Disclosure, they argued, would violate free speech and free association rights of union members. Union officials spoke of the chilling effect on negotiations.
"We could not speak openly and honestly if we knew that anything we said could appear on the front page of the Seattle Times."
Evergreen countered:
...there is no First Amendment right to collectively bargain in secrecy....[and] there is no constitutional right of "secret free speech" Furthermore the fact that union members might be held accountable for their statements does not amount to a constitutional violation.
The judge ruled collective bargaining records are subject to the Public Disclosure Act, but said the records are available only after the Legislature appropriates money to implement the contracts.
"Taxpayers," Reitz writes, "could best be served by seeing negotiation details before final funding is approved."
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