County employees win $18.6 million over 'temp' label

That's the effect of a settlement announced yesterday in a class-action lawsuit by more than 500 "permatemps" who regularly worked for the county and the former Metro agency but were labeled "contract workers."

The settlement is a second big fiscal blow against the county for pretending that regular workers were temporary. The county paid $24 million after settling a similar case in 1997 for having denied benefits to more than 2,100 long-term "temporary" employees.

In the latest case, the workers weren't even considered county employees. They were paid and ostensibly hired by private, temporary-help agencies that the county used only for payroll purposes.

Most were employees of Metro, the former countywide sewer and transit agency. King County inherited the legal problem when it merged with Metro in 1994.

County Executive Ron Sims, in announcing the latest settlement yesterday, mentioned only that it provides for a "$12 million cash settlement," including $4 million in attorneys' fees for Bendich, Stobaugh & Strong, the Seattle law firm representing the employees.

In addition, that settlement will cost the county $6.6 million in retroactive pay and benefits, retirement credits and future benefits for new positions to replace work formerly done by contract workers.

Some of those benefits, said employees' attorney Judith Bendich, include extra-long paid vacations for workers who went years without one.

Sims said the lawsuit "arose out of business decisions made many years ago. . . . Now the county limits its use of contract workers to short-term projects."

The suit focused on Metro's use of contract workers starting in 1989 to expedite construction of the West Point sewage treatment plant.

Plaintiff Susan Coles, the self-described "ringleader" in organizing the permatemps, said she worked in Metro media relations for five years without benefits or accrual of vacation or sick time. Finally, someone told the 44-year-old Federal Way woman she should fight.

"It didn't occur to me that there was something I could do about it until my boss starting saying I should hire a lawyer," Coles said yesterday.

On advice of her boss, Coles in 1995 began searching for other full-time temps for a possible lawsuit. Unintentionally, Metro helped: In the employee directory, it had placed an asterisk next to the name of each temporary employee.

For two months, the permatemps met secretly in the cafeteria of a downtown office building. Some wanted nothing to do with the lawsuit.

"They thought they might get fired," Coles said.

Others said they would help but didn't want to be named as plaintiffs.

Former permatemp Dean Wilson didn't see any reason not to sue. Now a King County Department of Natural Resources water planner, the 40-year-old Seattle resident said all temps could have been fired at any time -- and that's why they were fighting.

All plaintiffs in the suit will get a portion of the $18.6 million settlement, though individual amounts haven't yet been determined.

Attorney Bendich said 500 to 1,000 employees are expected to be eligible for compensation. She said employee records are spotty because they were kept by temp agencies.

While the average "temporary" worked about two years, some were employed more than five years.

In the settlement, she said, the county has agreed to create 40 to 50 new jobs to handle what has been temp work.

Bendich said it could take as long as a year for the County Council and King County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Learned to approve the deal, and to divide the money.

Bendich, Stobaugh & Strong has made a cottage industry of lawsuits on behalf of long-term "temporary workers."

Besides winning two big settlements against King County, the lawyers settled similar "permatemp" lawsuits against the city of Seattle for $10 million in 1989 and for $2 million in 1992. It has had a similar case pending on behalf of Microsoft workers since 1992 and also is suing the city of Bellevue.

For plaintiff Wilson, the settlement is a second win. After the King County-Metro merger, he became a county temp and received part of the earlier settlement.

While saying he likes the fact that he will get credit for additional vacation and sick leave accrued under Metro, Wilson said he just wants to be done with the whole mess.

"If I was angry or frustrated, it was a while ago," he said. "I love my job, though, and that is why I stayed through it all."

P-I reporter Neil Modie can be reached at 206-448-8321 or neilmodie@seattle-pi.com

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