Wage Increase Legislation Ends Montana State Workers’ Strike

Thousands of state employees ended a six-day strike Tuesday and returned to work, grumbling that the final agreement was negotiated by the governor and the state Legislature without the unions’ participation.

On the last day of its session, the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed a compromise pay bill that Republican Gov. Stan Stephens signed at 11:50 p.m. Monday. Because the trigger to strike last Wednesday was the failure of the Legislature and the governor to agree, Stephens’ signature was the signal for most of the workers provisionally to return to their jobs. They now must vote to ratify the settlement before June 30, the end of the current fiscal year.

“We’re not happy about the process,” said David Stiteler, an attorney for the Montana Public Employees Assn., which represents 4,000 of the 5,000 striking state workers. The governor broke off formal talks with the unions on Friday and negotiated directly with the Legislature.

“The biggest difference between working in the public and private sectors is in the public sector you don’t negotiate with the people who hold the purse strings,” he said. “We have 150 legislators and they hold the purse strings, but under the law we unions have to negotiate with the governor.”

The Montana Federation of State Employees, an AFL-CIO affiliate that participated in the walkout last Wednesday, also felt “cheated out of real, good-faith negotiations,” but recommended its workers return to their jobs until they can vote on the settlement, according to a written statement by Jim McGarvey, MFSE’s president. Both unions held open the possibility of another strike if the memberships reject the state’s offer.

The governor’s spokesman agreed that the unions held no official talks with the governor or Legislature, but said all sides were in informal contact all weekend. “To say there was no union participation isn’t accurate,” spokesman Victor Bjornberg said Tuesday.

The workers--some of whom have not had a pay increase in years--originally demanded a raise of $1 an hour, but that was quickly scaled back to 60 cents by the Legislature. When the governor vetoed that compromise on Wednesday, the unions struck. Monday night’s compromise gives the workers a 60-cent raise the first year and a cumulative 45-cent raise the second. Stiteler said Montana state wages are 25% to 30% lower than those in neighboring states and that many of his union’s members receive federal welfare benefits.

Both the governor and the unions claimed political victory.