How do you form a union?
Public Sector - Washington State
The process for organizing a union if you work for a city or county government (the public sector) is quite different than the process of organizing if you work for a private company.
The labor agency that oversees organizing efforts by public employees is called the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC).
RCW 41.56.040 Right of Employees to organize and designate representatives without interference. No public employer, or other person, shall directly or indirectly, interfere with, restrain, coerce or discriminate against any public employee or group of employees in the free exercise of their right to organize and designate representatives for their own choosing for the purpose of collective bargaining… Your organizing effort begins with a call to our organizing director who will work with you to pull together an organizing plan.
The first part of the plan is the building of an organizing committee. This committee consists of employees who are well respected by their peers and who are willing to communicate, educate and provide leadership to their colleagues who are a part of the organizing effort. The most effective organizing committee is one that reflects the gender,ages, job classifications and ethnicity of the employees that you are trying to organize. The organizing committee should be large enough to ensure that employees throughout the workplace know who the organizing committee member in their area is and has a clear line of communication with them. The organizing committee is the foundation of the union in the workplace.
Once an organizing is formed, OC members are given cards to have their co-workers sign. These cards authorize our union to represent employees and show PERC that people are interested in joining our union. PERC administers various laws related to union certification. The most effective method of gaining union representation is to have an overwhelming majority of employees sign union cards. If 71% of employees sign union cards, then PERC will engage in a 'card-check' process and certify the union to represent employees. After the union is certified to represent employees, employees will elect a bargaining team, survey union members about issues to prioritize at the bargaining table, and together with a Local 17 staff member, negotiate a contract with the employer.
|
