By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer

This is the third part of our 2021 wage series. In this article, we take a look at recent contract settlements and examine how those trends vary from recent previous years. Our view of 2019 and 2020 settlements and what we have so far from 2021 indicates that the Washington State public sector wages dropped in 2021 but not as substantially as employers might suggest. We see some wage increases with little substantial “real wage” growth (as measured once controlled for inflation). Whether a growing economy eventually will accelerate these is something we’ll discuss later in this series. 

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By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer

As part of our spring 2013 wage series, it seemed important to interject a discussion about how arbitrators have ruled in the recent economic climate.  I recently spoke on many of the same points at the Annual PERC sponsored Labor and Employment Relations Association (LERA) Conference, so this seems like an appropriate time for this review.

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By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer

In the previous two articles in this wage series, we discussed the extent to which population and assessed valuation correlated with wage rankings.  In this article, we discuss geographic location and the effect of various labor markets on public safety wages.

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By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer

This is part six of our continued series on Washington Public Safety Employee wages.  In this issue, we report on wage rankings for 911  Dispatchers and Police Records Clerks.

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By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer

This is part five of our eleven-part Spring 2013 Wage Series. In our last article, we covered Commissioned Deputy and Police Officer Wages.  In this article, we turn to Firefighter and Corrections Officer Wages.  We’ll cover Dispatcher and Records Clerk Wages in the next article. 

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By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer

In Part 4 of our on-going Wage Series, we now turn to the rankings of County, Deputy and City Police Officer rankings throughout the State. This series always produces both expected and unexpected information about the relative standing of jurisdictions.

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