A revived bill from the 2023 session that looks to expand access to the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) Stay at Work program is making its way through the Legislature. It was amended and passed out of the Senate on February 1 with a strong 44-4 bipartisan vote and was heard this week in the House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee. It is scheduled for a committee vote this week.

SB 5368 is sponsored by Sen. Karen Keiser (D–Kent). The Stay at Work program aims to help injured workers reduce long-term disability by providing light duty and transitional return-to-work opportunities. The updated version of the bill makes several changes to the L&I Stay at Work program:

• Employers can ask an injured employee’s medical provider to certify the injured employee for light duty or transitional work for the employer of injury. The employer must provide a written job description of the work to the injured worker.
  • The worker’s medical provider may meet with the worker if the provider has not seen the worker in the prior 21 days to determine if the worker can perform the work, and the determination must be shared with both the worker and employer.
  • Employers with 100 or fewer employees can also offer light duty or transitional work with a nonprofit or charity.
• Workers must accept or decline the light duty job offer within seven days after receiving notice that the provider has approved the job description.
  • Failure to timely accept the light duty job offer results in termination of temporary total disability benefits, with limited exceptions.
  • Workers can reject light duty job offers with a specific nonprofits or charity without losing benefits.
• The bill sets guidelines for offering light duty work with nonprofits or charities, including protecting employee privacy, the employer’s responsibility to meet L&I reporting requirements, the employer’s responsibility for additional injuries while the employee is on light duty, the form the job offer to the employee must take, and how the employer must make light duty arrangements with their partner nonprofit or charity.
• The worker’s experience on light duty with a nonprofit or charity does not count as transferrable skills and disqualify the worker from vocational rehabilitation programs.
• L&I must work with the vocational rehabilitation advisory committee to make recommendations and report to the Workers’ Comp Advisory Committee in 2029 on return-to-work outcomes and the new expansion of Stay at Work opportunities to nonprofit and charities.

If enacted, the bill will take effect January 1, 2026.

Dates to remember

SB 5368 is scheduled for a vote in the House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee on Wednesday, February 21 at 8 am.