Contact:
E-mail
Olympia
PO Box 40145
Olympia, WA 98504-0145
Spokane
1116 W Riverside Avenue
Spokane, WA 99201-1194
The Labor and Personnel Division is comprised of 20 attorneys and 12 professional staff in Olympia and Spokane. The division provides centralized employment and personnel-related legal services and expertise to Washington state agencies, boards, commissions and institutions of higher education.
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Division attorneys represent state agencies and institutions of higher education in civil service employee appeals, including disciplinary actions, disability separations, rule violation claims, and layoff appeals before the Personnel Resources Board, and in grievance and interest arbitrations before independent arbitrators. L&P attorneys also represent agencies in labor disputes litigated before the Public Employment Relations Commission and the Marine Employees’ Commission, and defend wage and hour lawsuits brought against state agencies in superior court.
The division’s appellate work includes briefing and arguing appeals of administrative rulings and wage and hours cases in Superior Court, the State Court of Appeals and State Supreme Court.
In addition to litigation advocacy, division attorneys regularly provide client advice and risk management assistance on a broad range of employment issues, including questions regarding disability and discrimination law, wages and hours of work, family and medical leave, labor relations, and civil service rules. Over the past year, the division has conducted training for state agencies on employee misconduct investigations, sexual harassment prevention, the Public Records Act, discovery practices, the Family Medical Leave Act, workplace violence, labor relations and reasonable accommodation. The division continues to sponsor monthly personnel manager meetings for state agency personnel staff to discuss case law updates as well as special employment-related issues. The Division also sponsors bi-monthly personnel manager meetings in Eastern Washington.
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The Labor and Personnel Division continues to advocate on behalf of state agencies in cases involving employee misconduct and application of the civil A unique type of case the Labor and Personnel Division has been handling in the past year is interest arbitration under legislatively-created collective bargaining relationships. Recent legislation allows home care workers and childcare providers, who are not employees of the state, to collectively bargain with the state over a variety of subjects, including reimbursement rates. During the 2007 legislative session, a bill was passed authorizing collective bargaining with adult family home providers. With respect to these situations, the division attorneys will provide advice to the state during negotiations, and in the event the parties are not able to reach agreement, we will represent the state in a hearing to determine the terms of the collective bargaining agreement. The division also advocates on behalf of state agencies in cases alleging unfair labor practices. In a recent case, the union challenged DSHS’s decision to hire private contractors to perform construction projects. A hearings examiner ruled in the state’s favor, finding that the work was not work that belonged to the union’s bargaining unit, and therefore hiring a private contractor was not an unfair labor practice. The union has appealed this case to the Public Employment Relations Commission. The division continues to defend significant class action wage and hour lawsuits brought by state employees against a number of state agencies, and is developing state case law in this area. Current active cases include a suit against the Washington State Ferries, in which engine room employees subject to a collective bargaining agreement claim a right to overtime during watch turnover even though they did not bargain for such wages. That case is pending before the court of appeals. The state recently prevailed in a wage & hour case brought by the Teamsters union against the Department of Corrections. In that case, the Teamsters were claiming that the members of a special emergency response team were entitled to additional compensation for all the time spent wearing a pager. The court ruled for the state, holding that the union lacked standing to pursue a claim for damages on behalf of union members.
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