The agency shall make available a procedure for parties to proceedings before the agency to prefile collective bargaining agreements with the agency in accordance with this section, and to thereafter incorporate prefiled contracts into other filings, by reference. The prefiled copy will then take the place of filing copies otherwise required by rules in Title 391 WAC.

(1) An employer and/or exclusive bargaining representative who request prefiling of their collective bargaining agreement under this section may file a written request with the agency.

(a) The requesting party or parties shall use the form prescribed by the executive director.

(b) The requesting party or parties shall attach or enclose a complete electronic copy of the collective bargaining agreement (in Adobe Acrobat, WordPerfect, or Microsoft Word format).

(c) The requesting party or parties shall attach photocopies of certain pages of the original collective bargaining agreement, as follows:

(i) The front cover or first page(s) showing the names of the parties and the identification of the bargaining unit(s) covered;

(ii) The page(s) containing the effective date and termination dates of the collective bargaining agreement; and

(iii) The page(s) containing the signatures of the parties' representatives.

(2) Upon the filing of a request conforming to subsection (1) of this section, the agency shall put the prefiled collective bargaining agreement into an electronic database.

(a) The collective bargaining agreements contained in the electronic database shall be open to public inspection and copying.

(b) The agency shall issue the parties a confirmation code unique to that collective bargaining agreement.

(3) After issuance of a confirmation code under subsection (2)(b) of this section, the parties are authorized to incorporate that prefiled collective bargaining agreement into any paper subsequently filed with the agency under Title 391 WAC, by referring to the confirmation code in the subsequent document.

(4) The authorization in subsection (3) of this section shall terminate on the expiration date originally stated in the prefiled collective bargaining agreement.

(5) Any amendments to the original agreement may be filed and incorporated into the original filing under subsection (1) of this section. If either party declines to profile an amendment to a collective bargaining agreement under this rule, a copy of any amendment must be included in any subsequent case filed with the commission.