The next in the series of PERColator Profiles, get to know Lorraine Wilson share her experience as a school district lawyer and labor relations negotiator.
The next in the series of PERColator Profiles, get to know Lorraine Wilson share her experience as a school district lawyer and labor relations negotiator.
Today we welcome Lorraine Wilson, an attorney with Law Firm Porter Foster Rorick as our next guest in our series of PERColator Profiles episodes. In these episodes, we get to know an experienced labor relations professional by asking them some preset questions, and then a surprise wildcard question at the end. By doing so, we hope to learn from our guests experiences, any advice they might have to offer, and any stories and tips that they are willing to share with the rest of us. I really appreciate Lorraine joining us. And I think you'll find her experience as a school district negotiator and lawyer very interesting. Enjoy the episode. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to the PERColator podcast. My name is Matt Greer, one of your co-hosts. And today we have the next in our series of PERColator Profile episodes, where we get to know an experienced labor relations professional. Today, I'm honored to welcome Lorraine Wilson to the podcast. Welcome Lorraine. How are you doing today?
Lorraine Wilson:Well, thank you even though the weather's a little January, dreary, it's a good day.
Matt Greer:Yes, January in Washington, that's definitely today, so thanks for being here, Lorraine. I really appreciate it. So the format of these profile episodes is that we get to know you and ask a few preset questions so we can give you a heads up about some of the questions we have. And then hopefully, we'll have some some food for thought for other folks who are listening to glean some of your knowledge and hopefully help them do a better job in their work as well, our community of labor relations professionals, so we really appreciate you being here, and your willingness to share your wisdom as well. I guess we'll just get into it and let the conversation flow. But why don't you tell us a little about yourself, Lorraine, your labor relations career history, and what are you doing these days?
Lorraine Wilson:Sure. I'll start with what I'm currently doing. I'm a partner at Porter Foster Rorick. We represent school districts, pretty much from Central Washington to the coast and from Canada to Oregon. We've got clients throughout that range. A good portion of our practice is based on representing school districts in the collective bargaining process with both certificated and classified staff. In my practice, just because of my background, is primarily focused in bargaining and then related Human Resources issues. And I usually have about a dozen bargaining assignments going in the year. So that's how I keep busy right now. I've been doing labor relations for about two thirds of my career. Before joining Porter Foster Rorick in 2013 I worked for both the Puyallup and Tacoma School Districts. The focus was Labor Relations and Human Resources, and in Tacoma I also did some legislative relations, they had cobbled the position together and it had a variety of aspects to it. As is typical in Pierce County school districts, both districts had a lot of bargaining units approximately a dozen each, maybe even a little bit more than that. So over that cumulative 10 years, it was quite the crash course in bargaining and the related issues that go with that. So that pretty much summarizes my labor relations career. Before that, from early 1990's up to 2003. I worked my way through various titles at the Washington State School Director's Association that's WSSDA. What I did there over that time was mostly the same thing. I was their policy director. So to the extent that you see school district policies that have been drafted by WSSDA, I was doing that work for that decade or so. I also worked with school board members and superintendents on legal and other kinds of questions, and I did some agency and legislative relations work. So not so much with PERC but the Public Disclosure Commission, State Board of Education, that sort of thing. And just because to link this back to the PERColator, WSSDA was actually one of the foundational organizations in public sector bargaining in Washington, especially on the education side. When the education collective bargaining statute passed in the, I want to say late 70s, WSSDA developed a cadre of consultants that school districts could contract with, or hire to help them with this new obligation that some of them will continued to resist for possibly decades. And so it was important to have professional bargainers assisting with that work. By the time I joined WSSDA in the 1990s that cadre and that service had somewhat diminished and districts were either doing the work in house or or through law firms like ours. But I did have one interesting, since it's the PERColator and people are looking for stories. I had an opportunity to work with Randy Bohannan on a on a bargaining activity. Randy flew his own plane from bargaining session to bargaining session, and Gary Gates would do would do that back in the day. And so Randy asked me to just so I could get an understanding of their work, go with him to a mediation session in Eastern Washington. And so I met him at a Pierce County airfield, and we got in his small plane, and we flew across the Cascades, tracking I-90 through Snoqualmie Pass and landed in Spokane County. I don't recall exactly whether the local folks had settled the contract, kind of before we got there or had decided they weren't ready for mediation. But I kind of looked around and Randy checked with some folks and we essentially got driven back to his plane and we got back on it and flew home. So flying I-90 at night, or crossing through the mountains in the nighttime was kind of an interesting new experience. So I've thought that this might be my tip to new negotiators, be flexible, and even if nothing happens, enjoy the journey.
Matt Greer:All right, that sounds cool.
Lorraine Wilson:Not every minute of WSSDA was that exciting, but yeah.
Matt Greer:That sounds pretty cool. Well, was it a white knuckle kind of plane ride, Or was it a relaxing, enjoy the scenery kind of plane ride?
Lorraine Wilson:There was very little turbulence. I don't know whether I should attribute that to Randy skills as a pilot are of it was just one of those quiet days. But yeah, I had some trepidation about getting in a very small plane like that. But he certainly knew what he was doing and could kind of describe how things were going. And it was a good experience.
Matt Greer:Yeah, definitely a fun story to share. Thanks for sharing that. I wish that we at PERC had our own little private plane that we could fly around, but not so much the last few years a pandemic, we didn't have to travel too much, but before that we'd be driving right across the mountains back and forth several times a week, sometimes. It'd be nice to have a little plane or something to go back and forth.
Lorraine Wilson:Yes, there have been times we've talked about having a firm motor home and calling it the Eastern Washington branch.
Matt Greer:A mobile branch, right? So I'm curious, you mentioned your legislative role both at the WSSDA and also at the Tacoma and Puyallup School Districts. I'm curious, what does that look like a little bit? What was your role in the legislative realm, in your roles as labor relations and human resources in those places?
Lorraine Wilson:Right. For WSSDA, I was the only, well, I wasn't the only attorney on staff, the Executive Director, Larry Swift, when I was hired, was an attorney, as well. But I would mainly go to testify on technical legislation that was up in front of, especially if there's a technical legal issue. I don't, people may not know Dave Westberg. But he represented the Seattle IUOE unit for many years, and also did legislative work on behalf of that union, and Local 509, back in the day. I think they've merged and done some other things since Davis retirement, but he was championing a bill that would allow classified employees to collect unemployment benefits during the summer, which is generally contrary to the rule that if it's a scheduled break, and you have reasonable assurance of coming back to work the next fall, you don't, you're not eligible for unemployment benefits when school is not in session. This would have changed that rule. And so WSSDA asked me to go testify against that bill. And so that was one of the examples. So sometimes I got the sense that if if there was a bill that was seemed unfriendly to humans, I was asked to, to explain why we had concerns about it. And so that would be would be an example of that. I spent a great deal of time with the State Board of Education. Their scope of authority was a lot broader in those days, they, the Professional Educator Standards Board hadn't been created yet. And so they handled, they oversaw certification. There's a major certification office, still is SPI, but the state board was responsible for all of those rules and a great many others as well, all of school construction. There were a lot of issues that were of interest to WSSDA through that agency, Tacoma, the Tacoma school board was very active, tried to be very active with legislative relations. And it was I got to change my focus a little bit to working with the local delegation, Tacoma touches, Tacoma School District touches on I think four or five, and that may have changed in the subsequent two censuses. But when I was doing the work, they had four or five legislative districts that touched the district and two predominantly. So there were about six legislators that I was focused on maintaining the relationship between the district and the board and those legislators and trying to encourage them to turn to us if they had any questions about legislation that was before them.
Matt Greer:That's interesting. I never thought about that. But yeah, with larger districts, they do have a whole caucus of representatives and senators who represent the various areas of the district that would be an important connection for a school district. I appreciate you sharing that. Well, all right, well, our next question, if we're ready to go on to that, and maybe you've already touched a little bit on this, but we're curious, who was one of your mentors, from earlier in your career? And what is something that you learn from them that you kind of take with you today?
Lorraine Wilson:Sure. Well, to go back to my experience in Tacoma, which is where I started my labor relations work. I guess it's far enough down the road that statutes of limitation have passed, and they can't let me go.
Matt Greer:Those are the best stories, when you start out that way.
Lorraine Wilson:I talked my way into that position, Director of Labor and Legislative Relations. And, you know, to put a good face on it, I had a good understanding of state education policy, and I had experience with the legislative relations, but I hadn't really done any bargaining. But they hired me anyway. Or maybe they weren't entirely clear, maybe I obfuscated that point. But they hired me anyway. And again, had I think, at that point, something like 14 School bargaining units, and Deputy Superintendent Bill Rossman was an excellent resource, because I was watching very carefully what he did. And we started, he was more active on the administrative bargaining front. And then I could kind of use what I learned from him to ease into the classified bargaining issues that were in front of me. And then eventually the certificated, the, you know, the teachers bargaining unit, at that time Tacoma had three, certificated or administrative bargaining units, the principles which most, many school districts will have to one degree of formality or another. And then they had both a central office certificated bargaining unit for administrators and a classified administrators bargaining unit that was against Central Office. And there was some interest and I think it was a shared interest, but kind of a how will this work? And what are we giving up? And what would we be gaining and in having the two central office groups, because then there was also a fairly extensive number of, in a large district, a fairly extensive number of unrepresented administrators at the central office. And so there was, there were these discussions about how we could roll the classified and certificated administrators into that unrepresented group, and assure them and attract them with an appropriate package of working conditions and benefits and whatnot. And, and that and so, I watched Bill navigate that process with with those two groups, and then also bargaining with the principals. And I think the key I took away from that was that sincerity and respect are the two key qualities for any negotiator, you, you have to be sincere about your relationships with people, I guess, and by, sincerity, I also mean you have to consider it important work. And understand that it's important to the folks on the other side, to the extent it's an other side. And you also have to demonstrate respect. And he did that. And I think it built the trust that was needed for those two groups to to consider and ultimately decide to become unrepresented. He also taught me that you express your frustrations about the incremental or sometimes backwards progress that you find, after a meeting, you express those frustrations only in private. And again, the face you put forward is one of sincerity and respect. If you do that, again, you build trust, and with trust, you can reach agreements that build toward your goals. You may not get there all at once. But the other thing that it does for you is if you're a little fuzzy, as I certainly was in two 2003 on things like the difference between a mandatory and permissive subject of bargaining or some other, what I would call technicality, which I know is not a technicality in PERC's world, that you will have earned yourself sufficient trust to come back stronger on another day when you do have a better grip on something, some of the other issues. So, that's what I took away from working with Bill for a relatively brief time in my career, but it certainly wasn't the focus of his work as deputy superintendent in a district the size of Tacoma, I think he very much wanted me to take the responsibility for collective bargaining and allow him to focus on all the other issues that were in front of the district.
Matt Greer:That's great, sincerity and respect, I think those definitely are two keystones that definitely resonate with me. So I appreciate you sharing those perspectives. And, Bill Bill Rossman, that was a name that I don't think I've heard before. So it's always good to hear somebody new and what wisdom you've taken from them. It's also amazing how often the mentors that we have, that kind of influence our careers, are people that are only in our lives, or professional lives for a short period of time, to have an outsized influence seems to be, you know, with some of the people I've talked with, that seems to be the case.
Lorraine Wilson:Some of your listeners, at least on the education side, may know Bill after he retired, he worked for OSPI doing a lot of the I don't know quite how to phrase it, but it was the SPI districts that were struggling to demonstrate academic achievement would be given both support through consultants through SPI and additional, I think there was even financial support in order to develop plans that could focus then on structural changes, curricular changes, teaching changes, that could enhance the academic achievement of students in their district and Bill did that consulting work around the state for quite a quite a long time after he retired.
Matt Greer:Thanks. So, the next question that we have is, what negotiation tip have you learned that you'd like to pass on to others who might be in an earlier stage of their career?
Lorraine Wilson:I think the key thing about collective bargaining relationships is that you you have to treat it differently. The focus isn't on bargaining, the way bargaining for a new car, or a souvenir trinket on a cruise ship wharf. Those are folks you may never see again, I find that even if I go back to the same dealership, I'm not going to see the same car salesman again. On the other hand, you are going to see the people that the union represents everyday in your work, if you're working in a school district or city or any of the other public agencies PERC works with, you're gonna see the local leadership all the time, and the people they represent all the time. It's a relationship, you can't get away from, some link it more to like a family relationship. Although you know, you always try to keep professional relationships somewhat different in their analysis from familial ones, but is that ongoing, permanent relationship. And I think that's the key to keep things separate, focus on the relationship, and its long term aspects. The bargaining part of that is just a phase of that permanent relationship. And so cheap wins, that undermine either your reputation or leave the other team demoralized and ready to get even really don't do anything to improve, in my case, the education that both teams should want for their community's children, or the public safety in a community or the medical care that's provided at a public hospital. I think it's that understanding and focus that you need to have your eye on the long term relationship that that I would encourage people new to the system, or new to the process to focus on. Because I think when you're new to something, you also want to build your relation or your reputation quickly. And so it might be interesting to show what you do know about permissive and mandatory subjects of bargaining are, or those other situations or maneuver somebody into a position on a topic that they live to regret, take credit for the win. But that can be a short lived victory, especially for in my case, the client who then has that ongoing relationship to manage and the next bargain where you're, your word isn't necessarily taken, and people are looking for chances to get even. I guess I would compare it to some of the work I did back in my days with WSSDA in the 90s. Where both WSSDA and WASA would be the School Administrators Association would be called in to assist boards and superintendents, if they had gotten their relationship off course, there was some conflict. Now, actually our employee units do have a little bit more control over this than boards and superintendents did. But I would remind boards and superintendents that no matter how important or difficult they found their differences. The next morning, the yellow school buses, were going to fire up and trundle down the road and pick up students and the starting school bells would ring and milk would get spilled and ABC's would be learned. And it was their choice, they could focus on making that reality better for the students in their community, or they could let all that happen while their attention was focused on other things, and I continue to look at that as part of the collective bargaining process. It's not, that's not the consuming portion of what we should be doing it. It's how can that process improve the relationship between the adults in the process in order to improve the education in that community.
Matt Greer:Right, that common goal. Yeah, I know I think that definitely some threads are really important. The short term short term victories can have long term consequences that aren't so positive, I definitely have seen that in various places. And, and memories are long, right? I find that even when people, you know, you have a new negotiator at a table, they may have heard that story about what happened to the last bargain or what happened at that bargain 10 years ago, even and then it's still fresh in their mind. And don't forget that. So I think that's a really good, really good perspective and advice there on that. All right. So now we'll look forward to a story from you, Lorraine. And you've already done a good job of telling us a couple stories here. But tell us a story about, and you can kind of choose, either a spectacularly good bargaining experience where you really shine, what it is that made that experience so good. Or if you want to choose something that went spectacularly terrible during bargaining, and what you wish you would have done to have made that situation better?
Lorraine Wilson:Well, my spectacularly awful bargaining experiences usually played out over such a long period of time. And we're so excruciating that I don't know that we have enough time. So I picked a shorter story about what I considered a very productive bargaining experience. That just happened last summer. So it may take you 30 years or 20 years to get to the point where this can happen for you. But just last year, we settled a two year agreement with a classified bargaining unit in four hours. So multiple year agreement, not just a rollover, we actually went, both sides went through the agreement looked at things they needed to fix, and got it done in four hours, I will say, the stars aligned, the union representative had years of experience, both with that district, and then separately with me. And just decades of experience in doing the work, there was trust and confidence on both sides. So we could do things like presenting our complete proposals kind of by internet before the bargaining started. And so it probably couldn't happen that quickly in another situation where we didn't have that reservoir of experience. The other thing I would say that helped that process is in addition to our long term, and some might say crusty experiences over, you know, decades, is the relatively new administrator that represented the district in bargaining. She had demonstrated such good intentions and goodwill, so consistently in her work over just a couple of years that the employees also felt a great deal of trust with her, that the ongoing relationship was strong and reliable, both sides could rely on it. And so even though the union rep and I of course moved on to other things, checking off a major component of the to do list after just four hours, they had a relationship that they could have confidence in going forward. So, so that was that was great.
Matt Greer:That's pretty amazing. I don't hear too, too, too often about four hour long bargains, especially in the K12 world, so that's pretty impressive.
Lorraine Wilson:We told the next classified unit that that was the mark to beat. And we didn't, but we we still had a good bargain. But we, yeah considered a expeditious process, if we got it done in four bargaining sessions over four days, let alone in four hours.
Matt Greer:Right. Yes, I think it just shows that, you know, the investment that you have put in that relationship, as you kind of pointed out in from the other questions that can pay off it can, you know, may not be efficient in the moment. But you know, maybe down the road, when you invested that into that relationship, you do get to have a quicker bargain, perhaps because you have that have built that trust. I think it was a great takeaway there. All right, last question of our regular questions. So go back in time, get into your time capsule and go back, and talking to yourself years ago as you're a brand new negotiator or in your labor relations career, what advice would you give yourself?
Lorraine Wilson:I would advise myself to know more about interest-based bargaining in order to do what my colleague calls one sided interest-based bargaining. We can rarely anymore get partners, union, or association side to engage in full scale interest-based bargaining. But a lot of the principles are still very help helpful. Now, one sided interest based bargaining is not what at least one of my clients jokingly calls self interest based bargaining, which is where, you know, the, the wage offer is weighted toward a particular subset of a bargaining unit or something like that. But the way you apply, so one sided interest based bargaining is, again, to be listening to what the underlying issues are. The words that are either written or spoken, and presented by both sides in the bargaining process can actually be somewhat confining. We're, we're required by law. And I think it's extremely good practice, because otherwise, I'd be completely disorganized, to have written proposals about what it is that we want to accomplish. But sometimes that means that we've gone through the process and sometimes maybe even too quickly, just on one side of saying, this is the problem, and this is the solution. And we don't either think it through on our own side or collectively with the union about, this is the problem, how many, what are the different approaches that could be taken to get to that answer. But sometimes, even again, if we're not doing formal interest based bargaining, if we're listening carefully to what's being said about a proposal, we can glean what interests are being supported by those words, and figure out how the parties can make progress toward meeting that interest. And sometimes even realizing it's a shared interest in getting to at least progress on that issue. And again, that builds the relationship because you demonstrate that you've been listening, and sincerely bring forward the responses from that. And I guess that, again, comes back to both building incremental progress from one bargain to the next toward toward your goals, not necessarily trying to achieve it all in one bite, but demonstrating that it's not so bad, to move toward a new system of social emotional learning in your district, or some other issue for which the employees might have some skepticism, or electronic bus monitoring techniques that employees are concerned are also monitoring them, that you can build trust over time, one session to the next, I guess I would leave people with or myself my younger self in the bargaining process, it's partially up to you, whether you leave the process looking forward to it or dreading the next time may not ever really look forward to it, but it is my chosen profession. So I have to do something to keep the revenue flowing. And so, there are definitely situations where I am glad to see the people, even people on the other side, if you will, and certainly my bargaining teams from from past experiences. And then there are other times where other situations where it is truly just a professional obligation to get in there. Get the work done.
Matt Greer:So that's great advice. I, that resonates with me, definitely parts of that. So thanks for sharing that the whole, like you call once one-sided interest-based bargaining as to how you refer to it?
Lorraine Wilson:Right. Look at the proposal and you list, remind yourselves what people said about it. So if it's, um, I guess one example I would have is inclement weather policies for school districts. So what do we do when it's a late start? And we'll we'll see some fairly dramatic proposals about not being expected to make up the time and, and not being expected necessarily to, to arrive at a particular time on a morning where the weather is dangerous. But if you listen to what's going on, it's about giving, acknowledging that people do have fears about traveling when the weather is bad. And also you're going to hear if you listen carefully, in most instances, a recognition that there's also a need and responsibility for folks to be at school when the children get there. They're supervising. They're looking out for their safety, especially in conditions that aren't normal. And so you can hear that and if you can come back with a proposal that acknowledges that, and also acknowledges that responsibility, sometimes you can make some real progress that way. And so you're still going to have a contract that meets your needs for accountability and coverage. And I guess, supporting the educational process. But you'll, you'll also have acknowledged that your employees have concerns about their own safety and the safety of their family members that they have to address first. And if they're not comfortable with that, they're not going to be comfortable with their other responsibilities.
Matt Greer:could do interest-based bargaining, but the other labor partner, whether it's the employer or the union, that's where bargaining against is not interested at all interested in that, but we see some value in it. And so I think that's a great, great way, or prism of looking through that and saying, even if the other side is on board with that type of the process, can still kind of glean some of the positives of that. So it's really, really valuable. For our listeners who maybe aren't familiar with interest-based bargaining or the interests concept. There are a couple episodes of the PERColator early on, where we actually kind of talked about that a little bit and PERC does provide interest-based bargaining training as well. So I'll put in a few plugs there. Thanks, Lorraine, that was really thought provoking. I appreciate that. All right. So that ends our preset questions. So Lorraine, I know you got a heads up on those. But one of our fun things we like to do as part of the profile episodes is that I have five kind of fun wildcard questions and you don't know what they are. But once you give me a number from one to five, let me ask you a question and see if you have some fun answering it.
Lorraine Wilson:I'll choose number one
Matt Greer:Number one, okay. All right. This is a fun one. I was always hoping someone would ask this one. So what is your favorite meal or snack that you eat when you're maybe bargaining or having a long night somewhere you want to celebrate? after the fact, you want to have some snack or something that can help get you through those hard moments of bargaining? What do you, what do you have?
Lorraine Wilson:This harkens back to my work in Puyallup, the Puyallup School District and the Puyallup Education Association, at least back in the day, I swear we spent at least 5% of our time in bargaining, talking about and providing each other with plenty of food. It's one of those caloric rich bargaining processes. The president of the association, Karen McNamara was very interested in being a terrific hostess. We did most of our bargaining at the association office, actually, it was the uniserv office. The association didn't have its own office, but the uniserv office, and there was a large kitchen and people were expected to bring in food. And Karen was great about hitting Costco. And I am trying to remember, I think it was a chocolate covered nut of some kind, I don't think it was peanuts, but she would buy the Costco size and would be flabbergasted at the rate that they would evaporate, we're talking the rate of the Great Salt Lake evaporation. They would go quite quickly. We also had great relationships with the para-educator unit up there and they bargained out of the same office, they were WA represented, as a group of classified employees. They were a little more conscious of budget, I guess, although everybody was but they weren't always looking for takeout or, or bring in food. So they talked us into both the District and Association traded off opportunities to provide food that we had actually prepared ourselves as the meal and so of course, there there was a certain amount of attempts at one upmanship as that process played itself out. Very much the beneficiary of that.
Matt Greer:I would say that's a lot, there's a lot of trust built into that process. If you're eating the food the other side had actually prepared, that's that's great. I've never seen that before. I've seen cookies, people share cookies they bake, not necessarily full meals. So that's, that's great.
Lorraine Wilson:Again, it was a pretty elaborate kitchen that was in this meeting space that they had. No, I unfortunately, yeah. My doctor would tell me that I focus too much on the food aspect of bargaining. But you're right, that there's something psychological about bargaining that drives people to hopefully helpful snacks but that certain, I need something right now to reel in my brain to either this difficult caucus or this upcoming presentation or, or whatever the deal is, so I never was a smoker but I can Imagine in the old days that people would just have a cigarette instead. But now we fill that void with cookies.
Matt Greer:Right? Exactly. Yeah, it's true. It's amazing, you know, like that food, that breaking the bread together and in, you know, some of the bargains that you can do it together. And you can have that moment where you're just going to eat together, I think that is powerful and can really help the bargaining process.
Lorraine Wilson:We did try to do that in Puyallup. And then, I don't try to force that on groups where that relationship isn't built to that point. So I tried to read the cues about how that goes. But whether that's going to make sense or not, I will say there are groups who still think it's part of the bargaining tactics from their side to have an array of food, and then make it fairly clear that that's their food. And so it's like, well, that's fine, too. We know how to acquire food. I've always felt sorry for you PERC folks coming into situations where the cookies are mounted up on both sides, cookies and all the other treats. And you have to demonstrate your neutrality by eating the carrot sticks that you brought from home.
Matt Greer:This is one of the downsides of the nice food spreads that we do see, because that is, you know some places you go and think, oh, those cookies look so good. But yeah, yeah, we try to avoid that, don't want to appear like we have any partiality. Who's cookies or better or whatever. Well, thanks Lorraine, I really appreciate you joining us and spending some time I know you're getting ready to go off to bargain just after this session. So I want to let you get off on your way, but I really appreciate your time and spending some of your time and sharing your wisdom and stories with us. Thanks a lot.
Lorraine Wilson:Thank you, Matt. This was a good experience.