CERTIFICATION OF ENROLLMENT

ENGROSSED SECOND SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 5481

Chapter 298, Laws of 2020

66TH LEGISLATURE

2020 REGULAR SESSION

FISH AND WILDLIFE OFFICERS--COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

EFFECTIVE DATE: June 11, 2020

ENGROSSED SECOND SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 5481

BySenate Ways & Means (originally sponsored by Senators Warnick, Sheldon, Short, Van De Wege, Honeyford, Wagoner, Fortunato, and Holy)

AN ACT Relating to collective bargaining by fish and wildlife officers; amending RCW 41.56.030; and adding new sections to chapter 41.56 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1. RCW 41.56.030 and 2019 c 280 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:

As used in this chapter:

(1) "Adult family home provider" means a provider as defined in RCW 70.128.010 who receives payments from the medicaid and state-funded long-term care programs.

(2) "Bargaining representative" means any lawful organization which has as one of its primary purposes the representation of employees in their employment relations with employers.

(3) "Child care subsidy" means a payment from the state through a child care subsidy program established pursuant to RCW 74.12.340, 45 C.F.R. Sec. 98.1 through 98.17, or any successor program.

(4) "Collective bargaining" means the performance of the mutual obligations of the public employer and the exclusive bargaining representative to meet at reasonable times, to confer and negotiate in good faith, and to execute a written agreement with respect to grievance procedures and collective negotiations on personnel matters, including wages, hours and working conditions, which may be peculiar to an appropriate bargaining unit of such public employer, except that by such obligation neither party shall be compelled to agree to a proposal or be required to make a concession unless otherwise provided in this chapter.

(5) "Commission" means the public employment relations commission.

(6) "Executive director" means the executive director of the commission.

(7) "Family child care provider" means a person who: (a) Provides regularly scheduled care for a child or children in the home of the provider or in the home of the child or children for periods of less than twenty-four hours or, if necessary due to the nature of the parent's work, for periods equal to or greater than twenty-four hours; (b) receives child care subsidies; and (c) under chapter 43.216 RCW, is either licensed by the state or is exempt from licensing.

(8) "Individual provider" means an individual provider as defined in RCW 74.39A.240(3) who, solely for the purposes of collective bargaining, is a public employee as provided in RCW 74.39A.270.

(9) "Institution of higher education" means the University of Washington, Washington State University, Central Washington University, Eastern Washington University, Western Washington University, The Evergreen State College, and the various state community colleges.

(10)(a) "Language access provider" means any independent contractor who provides spoken language interpreter services, whether paid by a broker, language access agency, or the respective department:

(i) For department of social and health services appointments, department of children, youth, and families appointments, medicaid enrollee appointments, or who provided these services on or after January 1, 2011, and before June 10, 2012;

(ii) For department of labor and industries authorized medical and vocational providers, or who provided these services on or after January 1, 2016, and before July 1, 2018; or

(iii) For state agencies, or who provided these services on or after January 1, 2016, and before July 1, 2018.

(b) "Language access provider" does not mean a manager or employee of a broker or a language access agency.

(11) "Public employee" means any employee of a public employer except any person (a) elected by popular vote, or (b) appointed to office pursuant to statute, ordinance or resolution for a specified term of office as a member of a multimember board, commission, or committee, whether appointed by the executive head or body of the public employer, or (c) whose duties as deputy, administrative assistant or secretary necessarily imply a confidential relationship to (i) the executive head or body of the applicable bargaining unit, or (ii) any person elected by popular vote, or (iii) any person appointed to office pursuant to statute, ordinance or resolution for a specified term of office as a member of a multimember board, commission, or committee, whether appointed by the executive head or body of the public employer, or (d) who is a court commissioner or a court magistrate of superior court, district court, or a department of a district court organized under chapter 3.46 RCW, or (e) who is a personal assistant to a district court judge, superior court judge, or court commissioner. For the purpose of (e) of this subsection, no more than one assistant for each judge or commissioner may be excluded from a bargaining unit.

(12) "Public employer" means any officer, board, commission, council, or other person or body acting on behalf of any public body governed by this chapter, or any subdivision of such public body. For the purposes of this section, the public employer of district court or superior court employees for wage-related matters is the respective county legislative authority, or person or body acting on behalf of the legislative authority, and the public employer for nonwage-related matters is the judge or judge's designee of the respective district court or superior court.

(13) "Uniformed personnel" means: (a) Law enforcement officers as defined in RCW 41.26.030 employed by the governing body of any city or town with a population of two thousand five hundred or more and law enforcement officers employed by the governing body of any county with a population of ten thousand or more; (b) correctional employees who are uniformed and nonuniformed, commissioned and noncommissioned security personnel employed in a jail as defined in RCW 70.48.020(9), by a county with a population of seventy thousand or more, in a correctional facility created under RCW 70.48.095, or in a detention facility created under chapter 13.40 RCW that is located in a county with a population over one million five hundred thousand, and who are trained for and charged with the responsibility of controlling and maintaining custody of inmates in the jail and safeguarding inmates from other inmates; (c) general authority Washington peace officers as defined in RCW 10.93.020 employed by a port district in a county with a population of one million or more; (d) security forces established under RCW 43.52.520; (e) firefighters as that term is defined in RCW 41.26.030; (f) employees of a port district in a county with a population of one million or more whose duties include crash fire rescue or other firefighting duties; (g) employees of fire departments of public employers who dispatch exclusively either fire or emergency medical services, or both; (h) employees in the several classes of advanced life support technicians, as defined in RCW 18.71.200, who are employed by a public employer; or (i) court marshals of any county who are employed by, trained for, and commissioned by the county sheriff and charged with the responsibility of enforcing laws, protecting and maintaining security in all county-owned or contracted property, and performing any other duties assigned to them by the county sheriff or mandated by judicial order.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 2. A new section is added to chapter 41.56 RCW to read as follows:

(1) In addition to the entities listed in RCW 41.56.020, this chapter applies to the state with respect to fish and wildlife officers except the state may not negotiate any matters relating to retirement benefits or health care benefits or other employee insurance benefits.

(2) For the purposes of negotiating wages, wage-related matters, and nonwage matters, the state shall be represented by the governor or the governor's designee who is appointed under RCW 41.80.010, and costs of the negotiations under this section shall be reimbursed as provided in RCW 41.80.140.

(3) Fish and wildlife officers shall be excluded from the coalition bargaining for a master agreement of all exclusive bargaining representatives of fewer than five hundred employees under chapter 41.80 RCW.

(4) The governor or the governor's designee shall consult with the director of fish and wildlife regarding collective bargaining.

(5) The negotiation of provisions pertaining to wages and wage-related matters in a collective bargaining agreement between the state and the bargaining representatives of the fish and wildlife officers is subject to the following:

(a) The state's bargaining representative must periodically consult with the committee of the joint committee on employment relations created in RCW 41.80.007 or any such successor committee for the joint committee on employment relations; and

(b) Provisions that are entered into before the legislature approves the funds necessary to implement the provisions are conditioned upon the legislature's subsequent approval of the funds.

(6) The governor shall submit a request for funds necessary to implement the wage and wage-related matters in the collective bargaining agreement or for legislation necessary to implement the agreement. Requests for funds necessary to implement the provisions of bargaining agreements may not be submitted to the legislature by the governor unless such requests:

(a) Have been submitted to the director of financial management by October 1st before the legislative session at which the requests are to be considered; and

(b) Have been certified by the director of financial management as being feasible financially for the state or reflects the decision of an arbitration panel reached under RCW 41.56.475.

NEW SECTION.  Sec. 3. A new section is added to chapter 41.56 RCW to read as follows:

In addition to the classes of employees listed in RCW 41.56.030(13), the provisions of RCW 41.56.430, 41.56.440, 41.56.450, 41.56.452, 41.56.470, 41.56.480, and 41.56.490 also apply to fish and wildlife officers as provided in this section. If more than one exclusive bargaining unit represents uniformed personnel who are fish and wildlife officers, they may choose to enter into separate bargaining with the employer or agree to conduct bargaining with the employer as one coalition of all the exclusive bargaining representatives. If more than one bargaining unit chooses to advance to interest arbitration, it shall be conducted as coalition. However, one exclusive bargaining representative may singly choose to exercise its right to engage in interest arbitration even if other exclusive bargaining representatives who have chosen to enter into separate bargaining have elected not to take that step. Any exclusive bargaining representative of uniformed personnel who are fish and wildlife officers choosing interest arbitration is subject to the following:

(1) Within ten working days after the first Monday in September of every odd-numbered year, the state's bargaining representative and the bargaining representative for the appropriate bargaining unit(s) as a coalition, shall attempt to agree on an interest arbitration panel consisting of three members to be used if the parties are not successful in negotiating a comprehensive collective bargaining agreement. Each party shall name one person to serve as its arbitrator on the arbitration panel. The two members so appointed shall meet within seven days following the appointment of the later appointed member to attempt to choose a third member to act as the neutral chair of the arbitration panel. Upon the failure of the arbitrators to select a neutral chair within seven days, the two appointed members shall use one of the two following options in the appointment of the third member, who shall act as chair of the panel: (a) By mutual consent, the two appointed members may jointly request the commission to, and the commission shall, appoint a third member within two days of such a request. Costs of each party's appointee shall be borne by each party respectively; other costs of the arbitration proceedings shall be borne by the commission; or (b) either party may apply to the commission, the federal mediation and conciliation service, or the American arbitration association to provide a list of five qualified arbitrators from which the neutral chair shall be chosen. Each party shall pay the fees and expenses of its arbitrator, and the fees and expenses of the neutral chair shall be shared equally between the parties. Immediately upon selecting an interest arbitration panel, the parties shall cooperate to reserve dates with the arbitration panel for potential arbitration between August 1st and September 15th of the following even-numbered year. The parties shall also prepare a schedule of at least five negotiation dates for the following year, absent an agreement to the contrary. The parties shall execute a written agreement before November 1st of each odd-numbered year setting forth the names of the members of the arbitration panel and the dates reserved for bargaining and arbitration. This subsection imposes minimum obligations only and is not intended to define or limit a party's full, good faith bargaining obligation under other sections of this chapter.

(2) The mediator or arbitration panel may consider only matters that are subject to bargaining under RCW 41.80.020.

(3) The decision of an arbitration panel is not binding on the legislature and, if the legislature does not approve the funds necessary to implement provisions pertaining to wages and wage-related matters of an arbitrated collective bargaining agreement, is not binding on the state or the representatives of the department of fish and wildlife.

(4) In making its determination, the arbitration panel shall be mindful of the legislative purpose enumerated in RCW 41.56.430 and, as additional standards or guidelines to aid it in reaching a decision, shall take into consideration the following factors:

(a) The constitutional and statutory authority of the employer;

(b) Stipulations of the parties;

(c) Comparison of the hours and conditions of employment of personnel involved in the proceedings with the hours and conditions of employment of like personnel of like employers of similar size in the state of Washington;

(d) Changes in any of the foregoing circumstances during the pendency of the proceedings; and

(e) Such other factors, not confined to the foregoing, which are normally or traditionally taken into consideration in the determination of matters that are subject to bargaining under RCW 41.56.473.

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