Several bills have been introduced in the Legislature this session that aim to change the way that employers are required to work with employees on transparency and records. Here, we review a few of those bills.

“Union-member” privilege

A bill creating a legal privilege between unions and their members (akin to attorney-client privilege) had a hearing early in session. Cities acknowledge that there may be times when an employee needs confidentiality with their union; however cities also have a number of concerns with HB 1187, including its implications for public records, impacts on how cities manage and supervise employees who are also union representatives, city liability for employee conduct (like harassment or discrimination), and the ability of a city to fairly defend itself in court. You can read more about HB 1187 here.

It is AWC’s understanding that the bill’s proponents are working on amendments that may address some stakeholder concerns before a committee vote takes place. A vote is expected soon in the House Civil Rights & Judiciary Committee. Check out AWC’s Legislative Bulletin or the bill information for details. A Senate companion bill was just introduced this week, SB 5706, but has not yet been scheduled for a hearing.

Providing employee info to unions

HB 1200 requires public employers to provide certain records to a public employee's exclusive bargaining representative (i.e., the employee’s union), including employee name and hire dates, certain contact information, and employment information like job title, worksite, and compensation. It requires employers to provide this information to the union for new hires within 21 days of the hire, and every 120 days for all employees in each bargaining unit. The bill allows the union to bring a court action to enforce the information sharing requirements and requires the public employer to pay costs and reasonable attorney fees for such actions.

AWC had concerns about the short timelines included in the original version of the bill, but the bill was amended to provide employers more time to provide updated employee information. HB 1200 is currently awaiting a floor vote in the House. There is a Senate companion bill, SB 5273, that had a public hearing in mid-January, but hasn’t been scheduled for a committee vote.

Access to personnel files

SB 5061 / HB 1320 require employers to turn over a complete, unredacted copy of an employee’s personnel records at no cost on request by the employee or their authorized representative within 14 days of the request. The bills do permit public employers to redact certain information as required by law. The bills also create a private cause of action for employees and former employees to enforce access and establish various statutory damages as penalties for various degrees of violations. We first wrote up the Senate version of the bill here.

The Senate bill was voted out of the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee on February 7 with amendments that clarify what types of personnel files must be furnished, clarify timelines, changing the penalties for violations, clarifying how this bill interacts with the Public Records Act (PRA), and other changes. AWC worked with the bill proponents on some of these amendments to address some of our concerns, including how the bill would interact with the PRA. The House bill is scheduled for a hearing in the House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee on February 14.