Washington Public Sector Labor Negotiations Blog
Trends and Developments Concerning Washington Public Labor Contracts
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
In our last Newsletter, we report on the just-released June CPI numbers. As we indicated, while we had expected a sharp rise, the size of the rise caught us (and most economists) by surprise. The June national and Seattle indices exceeded 6% as did other regional CPI measures.
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
The “All-Cities” index is published monthly and the “Seattle” and other regional indices are published every other month but of all those reports, it is the “June” numbers that are the most watched for their potential impact on contract negotiations. While some CBAs look towards the inflation report for different months, the vast majority of contracts that specifically apply CPI use the June numbers because they come out in mid-July about the time most negotiations are launching.
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
Spring Blip. For some time, we had been predicting a bump in the upcoming Spring CPI numbers. As the April and May numbers materialized, that prediction proved accurate. The question now is what lies ahead.
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 discussed geographic location and the effect of various labor markets on public safety wages.
[Read more…]By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
In the last issue we discussed whether – and to what extent — population influenced a jurisdiction’s relative wage ranking. In this article, we discussed to what extent assessed valuation influences that ranking.
[Read more…]By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
In the last three parts of the wage series, we have discussed State wage rankings for the various public safety classifications. In the next part of the wage series, we run our series of articles on factors that might influence or explain, at least in part, those wage rankings, with updated 2019 wage rankings.
[Read more…]By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is part 8 of our continuing series on Washington public safety employee wages. In this issue, we report on wage rankings for 911 dispatchers and police records clerks.
[Read more…]By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is Part 7 of our multi-part 2021 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.
[Read more…]By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
In part 6 of our ongoing 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.
[Read more…]By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is the fifth in our extensive series on current negotiation conditions and trends. In this article, we focus on recent economic developments.
