AUDIO INTERVIEW: Local 1909 leaders detail their differences with the Town of Friday Harbor

Thursday, March 6, 2025
by Jeff Noedel
audio by Jeremy Tyler

A 45-MINUTE PODCAST AND TRANSCRIPT ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE

Late Wednesday afternoon, SanJuans.Today interviewed Chuck Berry, President of Local 1909 of the Guild of the Pacific Northwest, and Steve Fraga, Staff Representative of Local 1909. Local 1909 has been negotiating for months with the Town of Friday Harbor government, which employs 29 union positions in the office and among the town-run utilities.

The negotiations have been contentious, and the positions of both sides have spilled out into the public.

In the interview, Berry and Fraga addressed:

• The union’s objections to the “step increase” portion of the proposed raise for workers
• Details of the union’s allegations of unfair labor practices by the town
• Whether or not the union believes they triggered the negotiation spilling out into the public
• The union’s belief that the Town can afford to pay more than offered
• The way that San Juan County government moving to a 32-hour work week colored this year’s Town contract negotiations
• Despite all that, the union believes there isn’t a big distance between the two parties, and an agreement shouldn’t be hard to reach

NOTE: The conversation includes many mentions of “COLA.” COLA is an acronym for “Cost-Of-Living Adjustment.”

Podcast (44:37 minutes)

Transcript

SANJUANS.TODAY’s JEFF NOEDEL:
Hello. It’s Wednesday, March 5th, and this is our fifth wave of coverage of the contract negotiations between the town of Friday Harbor and local 1909, of the Guild of the Pacific Northwest Labor Union. Our guests today are Steve Fraga, staff representative of the Guilds Local 1909 and Friday Harbor. And you’re also, the staff person for local 1937 and Bellingham.  And Chuck Berry is president of the local 1909 here in Friday Harbor. Gentlemen, thanks for being here.

BERRY & FRAGA:
Thanks. You’re welcome. Glad to be here.

NOEDEL:
So just to very quickly refresh our audience on how we got here. And you guys will correct me if I get any of this wrong. And I’m sure that’s what you’re here for.  Local 1909 represents all of the wage workers for the town of Friday Harbor government. And that’s up to 29 positions. If they’re all filled. And that’s a great majority of the town of Friday Harbor, government’s employment. These unionized workers work in seven divisions or departments. And those are our community development and planning, public works, finance, utility-water, utility-wastewater, utility-streets and parks, refuse plus one facilities manager, one custodian and one parking enforcement employee.

We’ll get into the rates of pay and the value of benefits and other working conditions. In this discussion with bottom line, the town has offered 5.72% wage increase over the next three years. The union is not satisfied with that offer. Recently, the union accused the town of bad faith bargaining and is seeking to move the impasse into mediation by PERC, the Public Employment Relations Commission.  In our previous reporting, the union feels San Juans today didn’t paint the pit the situation completely accurately. So we’re here to get a better understanding of the of their side of the story. Is that fair? Gentlemen?

FRAGA:
No, that’s absolutely fair, Chuck. You would agree with that?

BERRY:
Yeah. Okay.

NOEDEL:
So, Steve, you reached out to me first. So why don’t we just get started with you?  Where would you like to start?

FRAGA:
Well, thank you very much. First of all, Jeff, we appreciate both Chuck and I being here with you. And I think our perspective is to do just that. You just mentioned setting the record straight. So let me immediately, because it was in the opening, give an example of 6 or 7 things that I thought were really critical to correcting the record.

I like the mayor. I had met with the mayor. We dealt with a grievance issue some months ago, and it was my first occasion to meet with him, and I like him a lot. He’s a man of a lot of words, but, in the last interview that you had with him, he said a lot of words, but there wasn’t a lot of detail about what’s happening.

So I hope to provide a framework for your understanding about where we are, where we go. Some, points of law so that your listeners can understand how do we move forward? Chuck, and every bargaining unit member wants to move forward and get a fair contract. We all met, on the island on, 17 or 18th of February.  And, I asked every single person in the room, do we want to take the offer on the table from the town, or do we want to continue to bargain? It was a unanimous vote to continue to bargain. So I just want to lay that out there

But let me start with, one of those things that’s out there now, right?  Because the town administrator and the mayor have been talking significantly, and I didn’t want to do it quite in this order, because I didn’t think it made a lot of sense. But since you opened up, by repeating what the town is saying about the wage, offer.  It’s incorrect, and I want to correct that. So let me do that.

You indicated, and I know that you’re just repeating what the mayor said and potentially what the town administrator is putting out in several other forum that bargaining unit members or the town has offered bargaining unit members, five point 5.72%, in three year contract every year of the contract. And I just want to tell you that’s incorrect.

And here’s why you break it down. The 5.72 is broken down and this hasn’t been discussed. And so your listeners will probably appreciate it. And then they can decide.  There’s a ten step salary schedule. And the increment between the steps is 3.72. So if you are in step one and you have an anniversary on July 1, you will be afforded.

Unless there’s a problem with discipline or something that the town sees as problematic, you typically will get a step increase and you would get that 3.72 by moving from step one to step two. And everybody has a different anniversary date. And here’s the key. And the town is being duplicitous by not sharing this. Currently, of those 29 workers, I think it’s somewhere between 9 and 10.  It’s either 9 or 10. There’s been some movement, do not get the step because they are at step ten. It’s what we call stepped out, so to say, for the town to say that they’re offering 5.72% to workers is misleading, because a third of the unit will not get that 3.72% step. There’s no place for them to go.

They are at step ten. Does that make sense? Chuck? Am I explaining in a way that okay, good, because I think Chuck, you’re at nine right now.

BERRY:
I’m at step ten. I’m on, I’m on step ten.

FRAGA:
Oh, you are ten already. So Chuck is in that boat where when the town says, I don’t know how it makes you feel, Chuck, but as your advocate, I know how it makes me feel.  It’s a it’s a false statement. Chuck will not be eligible. If we accepted the city’s…towns offer, Chuck would get a 2% raise. He will not get a step. So it simply is not, accurate. Now, every year, Jeff, more of our members get to step ten and we’ll become ineligible. So by the time we get to the third year of the agreement, nearly half of our members will not be getting a step.

So it is incredibly misleading to conflate the COLA number, right. Which is 2%. That’s how you get to the 5.72, right? 3.72 and five. Now I also want you to understand this is a we don’t have a unique salary schedule. Jeff. If you go look at county workers, workers doing the same work that Chuck does and other workers in our union, they also have a ten step system.

You might not be surprised to learn that the increment between their steps is 3.7. And so…but like us, they’re spread all over in terms of an anniversary dates. They are on the grid, on the salary schedule in different places. I just I have real trouble with any employer, and I’ve represented employers… saying telling people like you and your listeners that employees are going to town is offering a 5.72%.  All right, I really do

Now, let me say this so that you understand. And on the ability to pay side, because that’s a concept I want your listeners to understand. This comes down as any bargain comes down to the ability to pay when you start talking. And on the economic issues getting down to the end and we’re having an exchange.  Does the town does the public agency have the ability to pay? I want to marry that now with the notion of the step system this past year, three of our workers that step ten left the agency or will leave the agency soon. Right? The difference between step one and step ten, depending on what level you’re at, right. What grade you’re at, because some people are wage higher than others on the grid.  Right?  But if you look at the spread, the 3.7 twos bit from 1 to 10, it’s somewhere between $24,000 and $30,000. So my point is this if three workers have left, I think two have left and one is going to leave very soon. The question is what is the savings achieved by the town when a step ten individual leaves and somebody is hired at a lower rate?  Likely a step one. But I’ll be honest, it could be higher because if somebody comes in with more experience, then maybe the town administrator decides to hire somebody at a two or a 3 or 4. Right?

But my point is this that salary schedule and the way that it works pays for itself along the way, based on the movement in any given year.  Because if three employees have left, there’s about let’s just average set at $25,000. That’s $75,000 to pay for the steps. So on the question of ability to pay, you’ve got to get more granular. You can’t just conflate numbers like the town administrator has done. And the mayor is repeating. And apparently the town council may not fully understand it, but it is inaccurate and, unacceptable to claim that the town has offered a 5.72% increase for a three year contract.  It’s just incorrect

NOEDEL:
Chuck, would you like to add anything to that?

BERRY:
No, that was pretty good.

NOEDEL:
(laughter)  Okay.  Okay.

FRAGA:
I get to keep my job.

NOEDEL:
Okay. All right, so there’s there’s that.  And then, do you want to address the unfair labor practice? Allegations? These are allegations. These are allegations.

FRAGA:
I’m sure they are allegations. And so, because bargaining broke down, I will give you some insight to that.  And Chuck can certainly attest to that. And then I want Chuck to talk about what happened two years ago, because the eerie similarity of bargaining breaking down, and it repeating itself this year is very problematic. And the details of how the breakdown occurred in our view is it’s the town administrator, her style, her approach and her conduct in bargaining.

So we’ve we have filed two unfair labor practices. They were filed some time ago. And I had continually told Chuck the bargaining team, because Chuck is joined by two other workers on the bargaining team, they sit at the bargaining table. So it’s the four of us, and they, don’t have the experience that Chuck had. This is their first time at the bargaining table.  But Chuck has the experience of the two years ago, I’ll call it a debacle

Two years ago, there was an unfair labor practice written by the attorney for the guild, but it was never submitted. And I read that again today. I’ve read it 4 or 5 times. That’s why I can tell you that the circumstances of our current bargaining and the breakdown are eerily similar.

So the workers in the unit this year talked to me several times about, when are you going to file “the unfair,” Steve? And I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t want file it immediately. I said, we will work through it. I kept telling Chuck, you know this is true, Chuck. We will get a settlement. I have a lot of tricks in my bag. I’ve been doing this a long time, and I have helped managers see where the deal is. I did my level best, and I waited an extra two months before we even filed the unfair labor practice.

There are two components, Jeff, to “the unfair” that we have alleged. One is that the town in the form of the town administrator, has engaged in unfair labor practice by bargaining in bad faith and secondly, by interfering, in protected activities that union members have engaged in.

And I will tell you, yesterday we received in both unfair labor practices and affirmation, it’s what they call a cause of action statement. A lawyer who works for the Public Employment Relations Commission does this for a living. Looked at our initial claim and essentially, we have met what I call a prima facie case. We’ve established a fact pattern that an individual, who does this work all the time has affirmed the claim.

Now, I will tell you the rest of the story. The town won’t. I’m going to tell you the rest of the story. The town has 21 days from March 4th to affirm, deny, or otherwise offer, their written statements to respond to every charge that we put forward. Then the commission will look at that response and ultimately, we will go to hearing if we can’t determine together how to resolve the unfair labor practice, I hope we do.

I didn’t want to file it. I filed it only because I didn’t see another way. But to hold the town accountable for the kind of conduct that Chuck is going to describe to you. He can talk about what happened in, it was May of 2023 when we had the draft unfair again last cycle that was never submitted.

But I want Chuck to talk about what he saw at the bargaining table so that your viewers have an understanding of the challenges that we face then, and that we face now.

NOEDEL:
Chuck?

BERRY:
Okay. Yeah. As we were getting closer to an agreement, it came down to, again, COLA. A lot of the stuff that we previously negotiated on was agreed upon or was either, not valid and that kind of stuff.  And so as we move forward to the COLA coming down to the brass tacks, we brought it back to our members as the deal that was given place and everyone, said, no, they want to change it and make it better. And when we came back to Denice with the no vote, it was a completely different person dealing with?

The anger that she had towards the union members and the way she talked to us and towards our representative at the time, which was Dean, was really hard to even negotiate with or even to sit down at the table. And it’s not unlike here where we weren’t budging, for her, her proposal this time, and she wasn’t moving from there.  And no matter what tricks, as, Steve said, she would not move.

So they’re similar in that fact and just, tyrant of a “this is what’s going to happen no matter what” kind of idea.

FRAGA:
Talked about retroactivity I’m sorry Jeff talk…

BERRY:
about as. Yeah as we we’re we came past December 31st. So we were in, status quo area, sshe said that we will not you have to prove retroactivity. And she came up with all these allegations of us wasting time. And so it was kind of like a ploy to get us to agree to a contract as soon as possible because we weren’t going to get retroactive. And so it was in February, I think we tried to get it February of 2024, I believe, to get it passed. And it may not have passed until March, but. And it was it was the no Retro was a tactic. And same with saying that we only have 10 hours of. Our, our own time. So when we do negotiations were given ten hours of, somewhat leave to come to negotiations.  And we negotiated I think up to we asked for 14. She gave us 12, which is great. But she said you’ll just have to get it done faster, as if we’re the only side of the table that’s taking up time.

NOEDEL:

So, Steve, this has turned into an extremely public process. Is this does this happen very often when it spills out into the public like this?

FRAGA:
It can, and that is on my list. Jeff, I’m glad you asked that question, because that was my first, sort of fallacy or piece of misinformation. And I’m going to quote the town administrator, because she, in another press, let’s see, I think it was print basically said, these are her words. The union recently opened negotiations to the public.  So let me square with your readers, how we view that as disinformation.

And I have to recount a couple of events. So we were we were getting stuck and we weren’t getting moved. So the union does what the union needs to do. The members engaged.  One of their points of engagement was to go to a board meeting, a council meeting, and they filled the council meeting.  They went to a second council meeting two weeks later, and they had two speakers speak on their behalf. And it was after that event and after the workers engaged in another activity which was putting signs in their vehicles, then everything changed.

And this is what the town administrator has determined from her standpoint. It’s not legally correct that we, I want to quote correctly, open negotiations to the public, and I want your listeners to understand that’s what unions do.  Iit’s called organizing activities. They can take a lot of forms. And under the law in Washington state, when a Unionist engages in tactics, right, to get attention to their collective bargaining issues, that is not opening it to the public. Those are called protected activities.

And I want to connect an issue in the unfair labor practice, which is a real problem.  And that is one of our members with the sign in their truck was dragged into the office with the town administrator. Their supervisor initially told them they were going to go in there for a disciplinary chat. They went in there and I had intervened. It got a little bit softer from the management side, but they were told what was wrong on their side and that they had to correct it.

And I will tell you, I’ve read the leading cases. There are leading cases that, in fact, if a unionist has a sign in, it’s, profane and very inaccurate. I mean, the deciders, the adjudicators of those cases, are not going to look at a, you know, it has to be very misleading. The point is this the town administrator had a lot of options.  Pick up the phone and call me. Pick up the phone and call Chuck. A complaint could be filed because that’s where such complaints are filed. If the town administrator believed that the union was acting outside of the law because of these misleading signs, then the appropriate place is to go to PERC.

But you don’t drag a worker in to your office. The supervisor saying it’s a just one or a matter, it’s completely inappropriate. And so, this is in accord with exactly what Chuck was describing, this attitude and hostile conduct toward, union members. And that’s just a piece of it. So, again, I want to talk about the difference between pulling in the public in Washington law, both sides can agree at the outset to bargain in public. So that means the public can attend every bargaining session. We did not agree to that in ground rules. As a matter of fact, we had no discussion about this. So I simply want to tie back to the inaccuracy of the statement of the town administrator. And I want to say that’s the day when unfair labor practices began.

Because the other thing, is that she communicated directly with every worker via email. That is an unfair labor practice. It’s called direct dealing.

There are a series of other things that make up our unfair labor practice. I do not want to get further into the weeds. We’re going to let an outside adjudicator determine that. But I think Chuck’s description of what happened last time there was a benchmark event.  She got angry and then all hell broke loose. And I think that’s what’s happened here. And, you know, that forced us to file an unfair labor practice

We’ll get it resolved. Let me say this. This should be time here for us to talk about how close we are, how much give and take there was, how much the union compromised.  And I’m going to talk. I can talk about that. I can give you some facts and information about that. And I can tell you that we’re down to a handful of things that are unresolved. And when you bargaining like I do for a living, when you’re down to a handful of things, that means you’re nearing the end.

NOEDEL:
Is there any hope that that you can reach an agreement under these circumstances?

FRAGA:
Absolutely. There’s there’s no doubt in my mind that a mediator will go into the room. And they generally, for those who may not know, mediators are there to get the facts, to know the lay of the land, to understand what are the remaining issues, what are the parties’ respective positions?

And then they meet individually with the management side, and then they come over to the labor side and they shuttled back and forth. And in most respects, I’ve been in mediation over 100 times. You get a settlement because the mediator is pushing on both sides. The mediator sees where the agreement should be.

Let me tell you what the problem is here.  And this is part of the unfair labor practice. This employer has put one viable economic offer on the table. I’m not going to name the number. It’s all about the public. Everybody gets it. That’s called a predetermined position in bargaining. There has been no change in the position, the only change in the position where disingenuous changes. I’m going to give you an example, because your listeners will understand this.

There was no change in the proposal. And then we had a counter proposal with a change. It said, we’ll give you an extra percent, and I’m going to do some math. So an extra percent for somebody making 80 grand, and I’m just using that number because the math is easy. 1% of 80,000 is $80 a month. You can do the math. That’s about $1,000 a year, right?

The hook, though, from the employer. I’ll give you the extra percent. If you take 20% of your own health care premium cost, the health care premium cost for that worker is approximately $200 a month. That’s $2,400. So I’ll give you an extra thousand. If you absorb an extra $2,400, that’s the best. It was because if you were a worker with family, you were also going to pay more for your family members.

So that… and we did a ten year spreadsheet, which we gave to the town administrator, which showed that that option was not an option. So that choice is not a choice. It demonstrates that the employer has not moved off the predetermined number that they put on the table to begin with. They were not going to move. They haven’t moved.  And that’s why we’re stuck.

But you see, the disingenuous right choice is not a choice, right? Because our workers and we have somebody who’s really good with numbers and really good with spreadsheets, put a ten year analysis together and showed workers for that 1%. They were trading off hundreds, if not thousands of additional costs. That’s not an option.

And smart people in PERC will find that that’s not an option. They will find that that’s a predetermined position. That’s an unfair labor practice. You’re not hearing that, but that’s the truth.

NOEDEL:
So going back to the, appearance, in the that you spoke of before the town council, where, to Nick power and, I forget the other person, himself a union man.  And, I think..

BERRY:
Kelly Martinez.

NOEDEL:
Yeah, yeah, in those presentations and, you’ve explained how that, you know, did or did not actually constitute taking the negotiations into the public.

Back at that time, the both individuals that spoke on behalf of the Union, painted a picture that there is a danger here of town workers slipping into the working poor and, I want to give you a chance to talk a little bit about that, because I looked at the numbers and — not to discount anything you’ve said at all and not to discount your your desire for upward mobilit, and, keeping pace with inflation, all those things.  It didn’t strike me that, you’re too close to the working poor, at least in this time. But maybe I’m wrong. How do you want to address that, Steve? Or

FRAGA:
I was just. I would just offer that, Nick powers is, an incredible lawyer. He does good work for the guild, and I’d simply say that’s not my framing of the issue.

And this allows me. Your questions have been great, Jeff, because they allow me to take this list of fallacies. Misconceptions, disinformation.

Let me chip away at the numbers to make this right now and again, I’m my frame is not that these folks are working poor. My frame is they are highly skilled professionals and the town and nobody has talked about this.  The town has to pay, wages and has to provide benefits that are competitive in the environment in order to be able to hire folks. Now, I went to the site today for the town because I thought there might be a job listing, and I wrote, I want to remind everybody that every single job in the bargaining unit is posted on that town work site, and there’s a competitive engagement to fill every position.

So every worker has earned their way into these respective positions. They’re highly skilled, they’ve gained great experience, and they provide great service to the town. Let me just talk about that number that the mayor repeated, the number that you probably looked at, the allegation that our median wage is $80,000. And let me just say I went through the salaries today.

I have it right here in my hand, and you can see I’ve scribbled on it and I’ve written in orange and all of that, and I’ve done some counting today, and I haven’t added up all the numbers to get to an average. But I found five of our workers whose gross pay –right —  their regular wage was over $80,000.  The other 24 are below $80,000, and many are in, $50,000 range.

I’m not arguing that’s not a good wage. And for their position, it may well be a fair wage. That’s disconnected, right? The salary schedule is, a good salary schedule. I’m not taking issue with that. We’re trying to get a fair wage as we go forward out of this crazy Covid spike in inflation.  And now how to workers who actually lost ground during that time because no public agency had, the economic wherewithal to keep everybody square. Everybody did as good as they could. Right. I can talk about that as well. So the bottom line is I want to work at both numbers, because the town has not only put out $80,000.  And I want you to understand, I know what happened there because the terminology was gross pay.  Well guess what? There’s a lot of overtime in there. We are. We are a, even the town administrator would admit and has admitted in bargaining. We run lean in terms of employment. Everybody picks up a lot of the work and there’s a lot of overtime right now.

We know there’s a lot of overtime because we know what the budget suggests, like $120,000 in one line item and probably another 60 or 80 and some other combined. There’s a couple hundred thousand dollars in overtime, but when you include that in salary and you tell people that you reported in public, you make it sound as though that’s the average wage of the worker, that’s incorrect.

I want to I provided you this information so you can ponder that. And I want you to know that if you look at the county colleagues, the counterparts of our folks doing this skilled labor, you will see that the wage rates, are pretty are pretty close. The other thing I want to talk about, this really frosts me, and I’m going to be professional about it.

The, town administrator also, put up purposely the, I think she called it the household. Let me get a peek here. I’ve got it. There it is. The median household income for Friday Harbor. And so one would say, well, why is that relevant? I think we know why. Because the scapegoat public workers, you compare it to another salary of the residents.

And we’re not in a competition with the residents. We think every resident who’s working deserves their wage and deserves, you know, a fair deal. But let me tell you, she reported that number $57,885. What she nor the mayor told you was that number was from 2021. Now, I went searching for more up to date numbers. The closest number I could find was 2023, and the average or the median household income for Friday Harbor was $69,954.

I also found data suggesting that. Now here’s the difference in terminology one is median. Here’s the average household income $97,948. Now that’s the last I’m going to say about those things, only to call attention to the fact that it’s completely dishonest to provide a number that’s five years old and put that out there at the because you put it right after you said, our folks make $80,000 okay, numbers are wrong.

It’s illegitimate. It should not be done. People should be more responsible if they’re going to speak in public, provide something in print, in public. It just isn’t the right way to go. We should be talking about what number should there be, what wages and benefits will attract for hiring and retention? Skilled workers like Chuck and other people and our bargaining team and other people in the bargaining unit.

And if you’re a town resident, that’s what you should want. You should want stability. You should want skill. You should want a happy workforce. And so these false numbers that are put out there that, in my view, are cynical to, you know, to put a false number out there for median household income in Friday Harbor. There’s only one reason to do that, to say, wow, you guys are this is a generous pay plan.

And therefore the union shouldn’t be asking for more money. It just it’s amateurish and above. I think this council

Now, I will say about the town council, I looked at their bios. I, I respect people who serve in leadership positions. I just don’t think that they have adequate information to make a decision and hold the town administrator accountable for getting to a deal.  They should know about what happened two years ago. They should know about this unfair. They should understand that the numbers that their town administrator is putting out are not accurate. And they lead the public astray.

If we’re going to have a serious conversation, put numbers on the table that are accurate. I think that’s really, really important.

NOEDEL:
Well, Steve, that is a ton of information.  There’s a lot there to digest. I think we’ve put enough on the table to you. Is there anything else that you want to get into?

FRAGA:
Well, just two things real quickly. I do want to give everybody in just a couple of minutes, a real sense of a better understanding. Right? We came to the table with somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 or 16 proposals.  The town had a few less than us. We’re down to the final proposals. The mayor talked over and over, and the two of you did about our 20% initial proposal that that that proposal was connected. And we talked about it at the bargaining table to the county workers having gone from a 40-hour workweek to a 32 hour workweek.  If you go to page 32, in the county workers contract, you’ll see that year a 6% wage increase, another 6% wage increase, and then a 24% wage increase because of the 32 hour workweek

Our members see that and they’re saying, hey, how about parity? And so we started and we’ll say that we started. Chuck. And I will admit to that.  We started with a, a high number. That number went away very quickly.

So for the mayor not to honestly say, yeah, the union sort of came back and we’d made four, proposals, in effect, bargaining against ourself as the town has stuck to one number and it’s all in the bargaining record, and we’re now at a place where this can be settled that a wise administrator would find a way to solve it.

So the last thing I want to talk about is the ability to pay, because the town has indicated they don’t have the ability to pay. Look, our workers think this if you have $100,000 to pay outside attorneys, then you probably should look at your budget and figure out a way to pay people who work for you and provide service to all of the residents.

This past year, there were several vacancies in the town, vacancies of our positions, which add up to about $100,000. Right? I’ve just done some penciling with that. So this is money that the town would have otherwise paid. But for retirements, resignations and people departing the town, that’s also money that’s viable money that can be used. I talked to you about the step process and how that 3.72, when you add it to all the workers, is reduced because workers leave and get hired or replaced by somebody with a lower wage.

I’m telling you, there is money here and I spend my life looking for this kind of money. We have talked about all of these things at the bargaining table

I’ll leave you with the last tidbit so you can do some math. Right. Every 1% COLA for all 29 workers is about $30,000. So you can see why our workers, who see attorneys from the outside getting $100,000, they see all kinds of expenditures in the town that are even more than $100,000.  They see they know that there’s $100,000 that’s represented by their own colleagues who’ve left, that’s saved money to the town.  We can get this agreement. That money is there.

By the way, I’ll just end by saying, you know, the town budget for 2025, the beginning balance is $29,200,000, give or take. The ending fund balance is $32,500,000. It does not take a genius to figure out that you are ending with a good deal more money, over $3 million than you started the budget year with.

$30,000 for every 1%.  My goodness, that’s a fraction, right?

NOEDEL:
But those numbers see those numbers? That is that the entire, is it the operating budget or does that include the utilities?

FRAGA:
That’s the, I think they call it a general fund budget. I could be wrong about the terminology.

NOEDEL:
That does not include the utilities?

FRAGA:
My understanding is it does, but I’m just telling you, that is what I understand to be the general fund.  By the way, let me let me talk to you about utilities. One more tidbit. And I don’t want you to go over you just cut where you need to cut. It’s just an interesting aside. I noticed and noticed, and our bargaining team noticed that when it comes to rate increases and you can look on the ordinances, the town uses a COLA system.

All of the charge rate increases this year that were much higher. There were many that were double digit, but they used a COLA formula to determine how much the rate increase is going to be. They use the Seattle-Tacoma Bellevue COLA to determine rate increases. And for us they use an all cities COLA, which is a full percent lower.

Our members see that stuff and they wonder, wait a minute. Rate increases. They use this COLA that’s higher for us. They use a lower COLA. What value do we have in this town?

NOEDEL:
You have raised a lot of, issues that are not strictly dollars and cents, but can you put a dollar amount on the on the difference where you are on, are you 100,000 apart or are you 200,000 apart?

FRAGA:
That depends, Jeff, on whether because I told you upfront that the union has a one year proposal on the table and the town has a three year proposal. So, our proposal. I’d be spitballing because I don’t like to do final numbers. Unless I know how many year contract we’re going to land, but I gave you the 1% for each cola, and you have a better understanding of the step system and the 3.72.

So, you can do math year over year to understand if you know, you do a 2% at 3% or 4% COLA, I can tell you having handled big budgets, lots of negotiations, been on the management side. I look at expenditures in this budget. This is a doable deal. I hope the council urges the town administrator to settle this.

NOEDEL:
Chuck, do you have anything you want to say in closing?

BERRY:
Part of the part of what I want to talk about, too, is kind of the overtime. It’s kind of a… It’s not that it’s your time. It’s needed. It’s, you know, with wastewater and water, there are, Department of Health and Department ecology that require us to require the state. State requires us to be, at the plant seven days a week sometimes. And like Steve said, that we run a pretty lean crew. So if we start, staggering to where there’s two people, if there’s one person covering Saturday and Sunday for the water department, and they kind of funnel their way in through the middle of the week, Monday to Friday, that kind of leads, shorthanded.

And then you’re end up going to have to hire a new person, which is going to be the offset cost of the overtime that you are getting. And so it doesn’t quite make sense to throw that out there as a overtime needs to stop when in the long run, you’re going to end up hiring a new person to cover up the slack that us being a lean crew can’t handle.  And, that’s all I kind of wanted to add in there. So.

NOEDEL:
Okay. And I’d like to ask you both if you feel heard, you feel like you’ve had a good airing of your opinions and your perspectives?

BERRY:
I believe I have, yes.

FRAGA:
No. We appreciate the opportunity to be here with you. Jeff, sorry to belabor some of the details, but sometimes, you have to get below the hyperbole and, you have to you have to start in order to get a bargain.  You have to agree on the language. You have to agree on the dollars. You have to you have to, you know, agree on the terminology.  Right now, we’re far apart. And the message from the town is simply, not accurate.

NOEDEL:
Okay. Well, thank you both for, for those explanations. And this is an unusual situation, folks, where, at least somewhat unusual, where, this level of detail spills out, in the process, as it’s been explained, this is potentially moving toward mediation.  And that’s a very opaque process. At that point, we won’t be learning much. We’ll just be waiting, for a resolution.  Does, mediation bring about a resolution 100% of the time?

FRAGA:
In my experience, every single time I, I’ve practiced, I’ve done labor relations work in California and in Oregon and, now in Washington state, although, less experience in Washington state.  I have not had a mediation, result in a failure where the employer comes out and ultimately, implements their last, best and final offer. I have not had that occur.

NOEDEL:
Right. So, practically speaking, this will be resolved in mediation unless of course, it was, resolved before it went to mediation. I guess there’s still time for that.

So thank you, Steve. And thank you, Chuck, for sharing with us. And this is I mentioned before the fifth time that we’ve covered this subject. We’ll keep covering it until there’s a resolution. I hope you find this, useful, as citizens, to understand both sides of the story. That’s what we’re here for. Thank you very much.  And we’ll see you soon.

PREVIOUS SanJuans.Today COVERAGE OF THE TOWN – UNION LABOR NEGOTIATIONS

Fri., Jan 24, 2025: Union lawyer and iron-worker use their 3 minutes in ‘public comments’ to advocate for better contract for Town workers

Wed., Feb. 5, 2025: Fair pay? Here’s what the Town of Friday Harbor pays its unionized employees now

Fri., Feb. 14, 2025: Local 1909 union accuses Town of Friday Harbor of unfair labor practices – Town responds (updated)

Thu., Feb. 27, 2025: Mayor Ray Jackson addresses statements made in recent Local 1909 news release