The King County Coalition of Unions after their meeting on March 16. 

Our King County Coalition of Unions negotiated Total Compensation bargaining with the County last year covering basic compensation elements of your contract, which was overwhelmingly ratified by individual bargaining units within the King County Coalition of Unions.

As part of the agreement, we committed to bargain a Master Labor Agreement (MLA) based on the structure of the National Master Agreement between United Parcel Service (UPS) and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. 

The idea behind the Master Labor Agreement is to consolidate language in our contracts into one general agreement that will apply to all Unions in the Coalition that vote to accept the Master Labor Agreement as well as setting contractual minimums for all participating bargaining units to promote internal equity throughout the Coalition agreements.  Additionally, some Coalition bargaining units are simultaneously bargaining their individual contracts at the “small” or individual tables.

If we are successful in ratifying a Master Labor Agreement by the end of 2017, members of the Coalition will receive an additional 1 percent general wage increase effective January 2018.

Starting in January of this year, individual bargaining units began meeting to set their priorities for their individual bargaining unit negotiations.  We met with the County in February, established ground rules for bargaining, and received and reviewed the County’s initial comprehensive proposal for a Master Labor Agreement.  Our Coalition group has met in caucus on several occasions to prioritize contract provisions that we believe belong in the Master Labor Agreement and to draft the Union’s proposal.

On March 16, our Coalition of Unions met again in caucus to finalize our initial comprehensive proposal for the MLA. We will be ready to make our presentation of that proposal in our next meeting with the County on March 30.  

If you have questions, please contact your Bargaining Committee member or your Union Representative. We will have another update for you after the meeting on March 30.

Thank you for everything that you do.

Check out the video update from Lisa Huntley and Brian Pinney, two members of our Union bargaining committee: