Several HR & labor relations bills are seeing action, or are scheduled for action, ahead of this Wednesday’s opposite house policy cutoff, the deadline to move opposite house bills out of their respective policy committees. Here we review a
few of those bills.
Bills that have moved out of committee
Employee personnel records
HB 1320 requires employers to turn over a complete copy of an employee’s personnel records (or a statement of discharge) to
current or former employees on request. Amendments were adopted to increase the response time to 15 business days (from 14 calendar days), remove provisions requiring personnel files to be unredacted. The bill also establishes penalties for failure
to timely turn over records and allows employees to sue to obtain the records. Another amendment was adopted that requires employees to give employers five days notice before filing suit. AWC has concerns but has been working to improve the bill. The
bill was passed out of the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee on March 23.
“Good faith” for self-insured employers
HB 1521 creates a duty of “good faith” for self-insured employers and their third-party administrators towards workers in
self-insured workers’ compensation programs, with significant penalties for violating this new and unclear standard of good faith. They also allow L&I to write rules outlining those duties and require L&I to investigate and order resolution
of claims. AWC offered amendments to improve the bill, but they were rejected. AWC opposes
this bill. It passed out of the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee on March 23. We will continue our attempts to mitigate the negative aspects of this proposal.
Recording independent medical exams
HB 1068 allows an injured worker to make an audio and video recording of an independent medical examination, and to have one person of
the worker's choosing present during the examination. AWC has concerns about this bill’s impact on the number of providers willing to participate in IMEs, as well as the objectivity of those exams. It passed out of the Senate Labor & Commerce
Committee on March 23.
PFML premiums
SB 5286 adopts the recommendations of the PFML premiums task force and changes the formula used for calculating PFML premiums, raises
the premiums cap to 1.2%, and makes other changes. It was passed out of the House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee on March 17 and is now in the House Appropriations Committee.
Bills scheduled for committee action
Union-member privilege
HB 1187 creates a new legal privilege between union members and their unions. AWC has a position of “other”
on the bill, supporting the concept of some level of protected confidentiality for union members, but with concerns about the broad privilege in this particular bill – including its effect on a city’s ability to fairly defend itself in
court, its impact on cities’ ability to investigate and take action against workplace misconduct, the need to clarify that it is the employee that holds the privilege, and ensuring the privilege doesn’t interfere with statutory mandatory
reporting requirements. AWC testified on the bill last week.
Sharing employee info with unions
HB 1200 requires public employers to provide certain employee information – including work and personal contact
information, date of hire, salary, and jobsite location – to public employee unions. Employers have 21 days to provide information on new hires and must provide the same information again every 120 days for all employees in each bargaining unit.
Most of the information covered by the bill was required to be shared with unions through the bargaining process already, and AWC was able to get the bill amended in the House to provide reasonable timelines for compliance. The bill had a hearing
last week.
PFML data access
SB 5586 changes the data privacy provisions of the PFML statutes to allow employers access claims data
for their employee’s PFML claims, including the type of leave an employee is taking, approved dates/duration of leave, remaining PFML hours, weekly benefit amount, and benefits paid and hours claimed. It had a hearing last week.
Dates to remember
HB 1187 is scheduled for a committee vote in the Senate Law & Justice Committee on Tuesday, March 28 at 10:30 am.
HB 1200 is scheduled for a committee vote in the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee on Monday, March 27 at 10:30 am.
SB 5586 is scheduled for a committee vote in the House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee on Tuesday, March 28 at 8 am.