Washington Supreme Court sides with Freedom Foundation over largest union of state workers in important public records dispute

Press
August 24, 2023

(OLYMPIA, Wash.) — In a rare adverse ruling for organized labor from the Washington State Supreme Court, the justices on Thursday concluded Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE) Council 28, and approximately 50 other unions, cannot block a request for the contact information of thousands of state workers by citing bogus concerns about doxing the victims of domestic violence. This is a victory for the Freedom Foundation and the Washington Public Records Act.

The case is based on a formal request by the Freedom Foundation to numerous Washington state agencies for the contact information of their employees. The request sought the workers’:

first, middle, and last name;
job title;
birthdate;
work e-mail address;
employer agency/department;
name/title of exclusive bargaining representative/union;
FTE status/percentage;
current annual salary; and,
duty station location/address.

As state employees, such information is disclosable to the public. WFSE, in fact, is provided even more detailed information. But knowing the Freedom Foundation wanted to contact the employees to educate them about a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning mandatory union membership and dues in the public workplace, the unions manufactured concerns about divulging the names of domestic violence victims to their alleged abusers.

A lower court judge granted an injunction preventing the information from being divulged, but the Washington State Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the union hadn’t proved anyone would be endangered by granting the Freedom Foundation access to the requested information.

“The whole argument was a smokescreen,” said Sydney Phillips, deputy chief litigation counsel for the Freedom Foundation. “There are — and always have been — ample provisions in the law to protect people whose safety is genuinely at risk. The union is simply hiding behind actual victims in order to continue collecting dues from people who might leave the union if they knew they had that option.”

During the course of this case, the Washington State Legislature enacted a law allowing employees to request their personal information be exempt from disclosure if they can show that releasing it would put them at risk.

The case will now be remanded to Superior Court, which can apply the revised standards.

“That was our objective from the start,” Phillips said. “These questions should be dealt with at the legislative level, not by courts finding exemptions that don’t exist in the constitution.”