Supremes shield state labor negotiations from public records law

Plus higher gas taxes, some recommended reading, and we're out for the 4th

If you were hoping for relatively real-time transparency on the negotiations between the state and the various labor unions that represent its workers, you’re out of luck. 

Last week the Washington Supreme Court turned aside a bid by the Citizen Action Defense Fund, a conservative-leaning legal watchdog group, to break the seal on records of labor negotiations before the Legislature coughs up the money to pay for the new contracts. 

The issue here is the breadth of the “deliberative process” exemption to the Public Records Act, which is designed to protect delicate negotiations such as the back-and-forth between labor and management over what’s going to be in the new contract, while negotiations are still going on. CADF argued that that exemption expires after the unions and the governor’s Office of Financial Management strike deals. A trial court agreed, but the Court of Appeals reversed that ruling.

We were pleasantly surprised when Shutterstock coughed up one of its fanciful illustrations in response to “labor union negotiations” (Image by Shutterstock)