Bill on sharing personnel records with employees amended, voted out of committee

A bill to require employers to share a wide range of personnel records with current and former employees was amended and passed out of the House Appropriations Committee on Friday ahead of the fiscal committee cutoff deadline.

HB 1320, sponsored by Rep. Julia Reed (D–Seattle), is a companion to SB 5061 (we wrote about these here), and requires employers to turn over a complete, unredacted copy of an employee’s personnel records at no cost on request by a current or former employee or other specified representative within 14 calendar days of the request. Former employees can also request a statement of discharge, including the reasons for discharge, from their former employers, who also have 14 calendar day timeline to reply. The bill specifies that “personnel files” include job application records, performance evaluations, disciplinary records, medical records, leave records, reasonable accommodation records, payroll records, and employment agreements, among other records.

It also clarifies that public employers should, unless specifically requested, address records requests by the employee for their own personnel file as made under the bill and not the Public Records Act (PRA). The bill also creates a private cause of action for employees and former employees to enforce access and establishes various statutory damages as penalties for various degrees of violations.

The bill was amended on its way out of the House Appropriations Committee. The amendments include (among other things):

• Clarifying that public employers can make certain redactions to the personnel file that would otherwise be required by the PRA, including names of complainants, accusers, and witnesses in connection to investigations of unfair labor practices, anti-discrimination laws, or employer’s internal policies on discrimination and harassment.
• Providing that if there is a conflict between the bill and an existing collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the parties are not required to reopen the CBA to apply the bill until the CBA expires or is otherwise reopened by the parties.

SB 5061 did not advance from the Senate Ways & Means Committee ahead of the fiscal committee cutoff and is likely dead for the session.

The amendments to HB 1320 still don’t address the fairly short timelines for employers to provide records under the bill, which is a concern for smaller cities that may not have the staff to quickly process a large number of records requests. AWC will continue to work on the bill as it advances.