Drafter
Clerk 07/07/2020
Title
A LABOR POLICY related to guidelines for negotiating and reopening labor contracts while county revenues are impacted by COVID-19.
Body
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. King County provides services that are essential to its residents, including public health, public transit, wastewater treatment, solid waste management, law and justice functions and recreation.
2. King County has a long history of partnering with its thirty-six labor organizations to provide fair wages and benefits to their members and to find innovative ways to provide and improve its public services.
3. Before March 2020, when COVID-19 pandemic began to have a serious economic impact, King County experienced ten consecutive years of economic expansion during which time it negotiated all of its eighty collective bargaining agreements at least once.
4. COVID-19, a respiratory disease that can result in serious illness or death, is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is a new strain of coronavirus that had not been previously identified in humans and can easily spread from person to person.
5. On January 21, 2020, the Washington state Department of Health confirmed the first case of the novel coronavirus in the United States in Snohomish County. COVID-19, a respiratory disease that can result in serious illness or death, is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which is a new strain of coronavirus that had not been previously identified in humans and can easily spread from person to person.
6. On February 29, 2020, the Washington state Governor proclaimed that a State of Emergency exists in all counties in the state of Washington as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
7. The King County executive issued a proclamation of emergency on March 1, 2020, in order to allow King County to quickly respond to the new or different demands on service in response to the emergency caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
8. On March 23, 2020, Governor Inslee issued a statewide "S...
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