Many of you will remember the efforts starting in 2016 to keep the Freedom Foundation getting all sorts of personal information about you through the Public Records Act.

WPEA, later joined by a coalition of other unions, filed suit for a permanent injunction to keep your private contact information and other identifying information out of these blanket public records requests. This was followed by a series of court hearings, from the Thurston County Superior Court all the way to the State Supreme Court in 2018. Just last week, we finally got a ruling on the case. Unfortunately, we lost the case. It was a 5-4 decision when our state lawmakers and courts have been reluctant to consider any new exemptions to the Public Records Act.

Fixing this issue with the Public Records Act and safeguarding your privacy, is our number one non-economic issue in the coming legislative session. We are incredibly frustrated and disappointed that it has come to this but we are still fighting to protect your privacy rights.
 
Timeline

• 2016 – The Freedom Foundation filed a public records request for all state employee WPEA members’ birthdates. WPEA, later joined by a coalition of other unions, filed suit to protect our members’ personal information. We lost in Thurston County Superior Court, and appealed to the Court of Appeals.

 

• 2017 – The Court of Appeals ruled that releasing public employee birthdates violated the privacy of public employees. The Freedom Foundation and the newspaper owners appealed to the Washington Supreme Court.

 

• 2018 – Senator Patty Kuderer introduced legislation (SB 6079) to update disclosure rules and better protect public employees’ personal information. Senator Kuderer got her bill through the Senate, but it died in the House.

 

• 2019 – In a 5-4 decision, the Washington State Supreme Court overturned the Court of Appeals decision & ruled against protecting our members’ personal information from disclosure.

 

• 2020 – Now that the Court has issued its ruling, it is time for the legislature to act. We are calling on the legislature to modernize and strengthen protections for public employee data.

 
How you can help:
Contact your legislators and tell them it is time to pass a bill to protect your personal information from public disclosure. Here are some points you can include:

• The Public Records Act was written over 40 years ago, long before we faced issues such as identity theft or cyber security. It’s time for an update.
  • Public employee social security numbers were subject to disclosure until the legislature exempted them less than 20 years ago.
  • The only reason the Court ruled against public employee privacy was because the law didn’t exempt birth dates specifically. Their ruling opens the door open for the legislature to update the PRA.

 

• Public service employees already face harassment - especially those in law enforcement, child welfare, or health inspection. Why make it easier for their harassers?
  • In 2019, the legislature passed narrow laws to protect personal information in circumstances of harassment: “The legislature finds that state agency employees operate in unique work environments in which there is a higher level of transparency surrounding their daily work activities… The legislature finds that workplace safety is of paramount importance and that the state has an interest in protecting against the inappropriate use of public resources to carry out actions of sexual harassment or stalking.”

 

• Names and birth dates are the key that unlocks private information and exposes people to identity theft and worse.
  • Even in ruling against employee privacy, the Court recognized that birth date disclosure creates a risk to public employees: “We appreciate the Unions’ concern that disclosing birth dates with corresponding employee names may allow PRA requestors or others to obtain residential addresses and to potentially access financial information, retirement accounts, health care records or other employee records.”
  • As Justice Wiggins wrote in his dissent, “Identity theft, credit card fraud, hacking, phishing – cybercriminals use our names and birth dates to do all of this and worse. To protect against these threats, it is critical to safeguard personally identifying information like names and birth dates.”
  
  

“In our age of technology, information is fuel. And personal information collected and shared around the world – with good and bad actors alike. Governments collect information about their workers for useful and innocuous goals, such as identifying and tracking workers; but public disclosure of that information risks exposing those employees to cybercrime.”
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“The disclosure of names and birth dates to the public will occur without employee consent and will inevitably make these employees vulnerable cybercriminals searching for personal details at cut-rate prices online.”
 

• Governmental transparency doesn’t mean that public employees have to give up all their private personal information.
  • The newspapers argued that birth date disclosure was necessary to report on government activity. Wiggins refutes that claim, writing, “While identifying state workers could potentially advance a third-party interest, such as easing the job of news reporting, that interest alone does not qualify as a legitimate public concern – especially in light of the significant harm that may befall state employees by the disclosure of their names and birth dates.”
  • Justice Steven Gonzalez wrote a separate dissent in which he said, “I cannot believe the legislature intended to allow the PRA to undermine an agency’s protection of individuals’ personal information.” Later, Justice Gonzalez wrote that “Disturbing results will follow if this personal information is not protected by our state agencies.”

 

Statement from WPEA President Kent Stanford:

“On behalf of our members and public employees statewide, we are deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision today. Washington State’s founders provided strong privacy rights for all our citizens in our Constitution. Public employees are also citizens and should not have to give up those vital protections when they choose to serve the public good. Despite this decision, we’re proud that we went to court to protect our members’ privacy.

Public service employees already face low wages and harassment on the job.  It is unconscionable that they must also deal with increased risk of data breaches, doxing, and identity theft, just because they’ve answered the call to serve the people of Washington.
We respect and value governmental transparency, but this is a blatant attempt by secretly-funded, politically-motivated, anti-public service special interests to intimidate and destroy the privacy of public employees in order to fuel their extreme anti-worker ideology.
It is time for the legislature to pass stronger protections for public employees’ personal information.”
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To view an article about the decision please click here:
https://apnews.com/c1ff652f271947b2884dfe1216a11bc2

The Massachusetts Legislature last week passed the nation’s strongest legislative response to the Supreme Court’s anti-union Janus v. AFSCME decision by overriding a veto from Gov. Charlie Baker. The new law will allow unions to reasonably charge nonmember employees for legal representation and ensure better communications between unions and members.

As Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steven Tolman said, “The state legislature made a strong statement that unions are in the public interest and will remain a strong force for economic fairness in Massachusetts. The overwhelming bipartisan votes to override Governor Baker’s veto by the House and Senate this week demonstrate that unions are not a partisan issue in Massachusetts.” 

From The Labor Wire (AFL-CIO)