As part of their efforts to stop release of documents relating to labor negotiations, public employee unions have filed statements of workers describing the ills that would come if the process were made public. It's all in response to a lawsuit the unions filed to stop release of documents related to their collective bargaining with the state.

The lawsuit came in a response to a public records request for the documents from the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation. The group, which focuses much of its work these days on battling public employee unions, wants to see all the notes and everything else written during closed negotiation sessions.

In the statements from union workers and negotiators there's lots of what you'd expect — claims that public disclosure would create a chilling effect on the process. But I hadn't thought about this potential fall out, as described by Jay Ubelhart, a ferry worker:

If I, in the heat of negotiations, stated I didn't give a damn about those complaining customers and it was written down by a member of the management team, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, or a media outlet would print it on the front page of any communications organ of their choosing. I would be subject to ridicule and confrontations with customers who might take offense.

I wholeheartedly agree with this statement from Leslie Liddle, executive director of the Washington Public Employees Association, UFCW Local 365:

People do not want to see what they disclosed in negotiations end up on the front page of the Seattle-P-I newspaper.

There is a substantive fight going on about this. There is a hearing in King County Superior Court scheduled for later this morning. EFF has the court documents on its Web site here.

At the Olympian, Adam Wilson has written about the dispute as well as legislative efforts to prohibit release of collective bargaining documents. That bill is waiting for a vote in the House.