Seattle's employee union won up to $5M. The city hasn't paid it

The city of Seattle last month agreed to give nearly 300 city workers retroactive raises to settle an unfair labor practice complaint from its largest union, PROTEC17.

The settlement, however, has stirred debate in City Hall over whether proper procedures were followed or whether the issue should have been addressed at the bargaining table. Mayor Katie Wilson and the City Council learned about the settlement this week.

The union and the city have come up with different estimates of the total value of the raises, but they are likely to fall somewhere between $3 million and $5 million. At a time when the city is crunched for dollars, it's a notable figure.

The tension over the settlement reflects a larger friction between the city and its unions before a new round of negotiations, set to begin in a few months. The unions are making demands of the city outside of the bargaining process, including for changes to how Seattle's labor relations team is structured and who has ultimate authority.

So far, the raises and back pay have largely not been implemented as department staff await instructions from the city's human resources department, which has frustrated union representatives.

The settlement came from a complaint filed last year by PROTEC17, which represents more than 3,000 professional and technical workers for Seattle. The union took issue with the minimum qualifications and pay scales of engineers, which it argued were leading to lower-level workers seeing faster raises than their superiors, even with fewer requirements to be hired.

The union and city entered mediation in February before labor relations staff with the city signed off on the settlement. The agreement added one additional pay step for senior engineers and granted 4% raises to both senior and associate engineers, retroactive to 2024.

But more than a month later, department staff have so far not received official word on when and how to implement the changes.

At issue is whether the changes within the settlement, particularly adding an additional pay step for employees, were significant enough that they should have first gotten approval through the city's more formal negotiation process. The settlement is likely to be sent to the City Council's Labor Relations Policy Committee, which meets in private to approve bargaining parameters and take up or down votes on preliminary collective bargaining agreements, though it's unclear if they could or would make any changes after it's already been signed.

The delayed rollout has frustrated union staff. Steven Pray, union representative with PROTEC17, said he believes the city is dragging its feet because not everyone agrees the settlement should have been signed.

"To me, it feels like some sort of buyer's remorse," he said.

Spokespeople for Wilson and the city's human resources department did not return requests for comment.

The union is clashing with the human resources department outside of the settlement, as well.

In a letter sent late last month to Wilson and the City Council, 18 unions with represented workers in the city called for creating an empowered and independent" labor relations department outside of human resources. The letter criticized city bureaucracy for its drawn-out processes and for allowing city departments to ignore pieces of settlements and collective bargaining agreements.

"We need a Labor Relations Department that city departments view as an authority figure, not a group that can be ignored at will," the letter reads. "Labor Relations should be an entity that reflects the values of the Mayor's Office toward its workforce."

The city's unions in recent years have found better luck when they can appeal directly to elected officials, rather than the city's designated negotiators. The last round of bargaining, in 2023, between the coalition of city unions and the city was stuck in a standoff for most of a year until then-Mayor Bruce Harrell got directly involved. Within weeks, the union won raises of between 5% and 6%, which was more generous than other public sector unions were seeing at the same time.

Following the conclusion of the negotiations, Harrell fired the city's director of labor relations.

Some current and former employees, meanwhile, have lamented what they view as political meddling and overly friendly labor deals and questioned if the city is getting the best it can.

The city is due to start a new round of negotiations with the unions that will have significant implications for the city's budget. Seattle is projected to have gaps between spending and revenue of about $150 million in each of the coming years.

In its letter, the unions questioned whether Seattle was adequately staffed, saying there's just one person responsible for providing accurate data and calculating the cost of each proposal.

"Negotiations will surely be stalled if one person is costing out proposals on behalf of over 6,000 city employees, it said.

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