Senate Democrats led a charge this year to force unpaid furloughs upon state employees in order to "spread the pain." Never mind that state employees had already sacrificed their cost-of-living increases, had $300 million diverted from their pension funds, and suffered about 3,000 layoffs in the current biennial budget.

Originally, SB 6503 piled on the equivalent of a 5% pay cut through 16 forced furlough days. After vehement opposition from WFSE/AFSCME, WPEA/UFCW and other unions, the Senate scaled it back to 13 furlough days or one per month and allowed agencies to identify other ways to save the same amount of money to avoid the furloughs. Still opposed by labor, that version passed 27-17 (Senate Vote #1).

SB 6503 met with opposition from House Democrats and died in the regular session. But during the special session, it was revived by the Senate and eventually passed by narrow majorities in both houses. Intense and sustained opposition by state employee unions succeeded in further mitigating the damage of SB 6503. The final version exempted the majority of state employees but still required nearly 12,500 state workers to take 10 days off without pay over the next 14 months unless management can come up with another way to match projected savings.

But another surprise was in store when Gov. Chris Gregoire signed SB 6503 on April 27. She vetoed the section of the bill directing that $10 million of the cuts come from Washington Management Service and other management classes. She said the cut was unfair to management and would harm recruitment and retention.

This means an even bigger chunk of savings now must come from front-line state workers, increasing the chances that mandatory furloughs will occur for affected state employees.

Not satisfied that they had lost two straight years of cost-of-living adjustments, Sen. Joe Zarelli (R-Vancouver) led the Republican Party’s public-relations assault against state employees, calling for the Democratic majority to eliminate all step increases and to force state employees to pay 20% of health premiums instead of the current 12%.

State employee unions explained that step increases are not pay raises, they are part of the salary the state promises its employees when they are first hired. Workers get less when they first start -- a discount for the state -- and as they gain experience, the step increases eventually reach their "journey-level" salaries.

Sen. Zarelli & Co. would have our state become the kind of employer that pulls a bait-and-switch, abandoning its commitments to its employees. Fortunately, his effort to eliminate step increases gained no traction among majority Democrats.