While newspaper editorials around the state call on Governor Gregoire to address the looming $2.6 billion deficit by trimming the state’s workforce and cutting state workers’ inflated salary and benefits (things every other business has to do to survive), Gregoire continues to maintain her hands are tied.  She says the union contract she negotiated for state workers leaves her with no wiggle room to make any cuts and union leaders have said no dice to her request to help the state by offering up “concessions” such as pay and benefits cuts for state workers.   

All the while the unions have shrilly decried newspapers’ audacity in suggesting state workers should suffer or offer any sacrifice during the worst recession since the Great Depression.  How dare they suggest state workers not receive their negotiated 5% pay increase.  How dare they suggest state workers pay a greater portion of their health insurance premiums, as employees in the private sector do (state workers pay just 12% of their health insurance premiums while private sector workers pay an average 23%).  They won’t give up one penny, nor should they be expected to. 

Rewind to 2007.  Gregoire doled out double digit pay hikes to state workers, with some receiving raises of more than 25%.  These raises for 111,000 state workers carried a hefty $1.6 billion price tag over just two years.   Gregoire’s giveaway to her biggest supporters raised some eyebrows.  She shrugged off any criticism of the excessive state worker compensation by explaining the economy was flush (remember those days?) and state workers deserved to reap some of the benefits.  Who can forget Gregoire giddily declaring “these are good times, these are exciting times” in response to her $30 billion budget that increased state spending so much it vaporized the state’s $1.9 billion budget surplus?   

Besides, Gregoire assured, state workers won’t forget her generosity and will return the favor if they are ever called upon to offer up some compensatory sacrifices should the state’s magic money tree disappear:

"I expect them to be good soldiers. We've shown that, when we do have revenue, we will be very fair to folks, so when we're in troubled times we'll expect the same fairness from them."

The troubled times are here, so where’s the fairness from the state workers’ union?