issue area reports | employment & workplace wage liens. The bill would have changed long-standing practices around lien rights and would have placed a wage lien in a superior position over financial institution liens. The financial institution would be placed in an inferior lien position on disputes that the financial institution had no control over and where the financial institution is not at fault. AWB opposed the bill.
pay equity
Pay equity legislation was once again a major issue in 2018. Like last session, AWB worked with a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Rep. Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island( the prime sponsor of House Bill 1506), Rep. Gina Mosbrucker, R-Goldendale, and Sen. Annette Cleveland, D-Vancouver,( the sponsor of Senate Bill 5140) to see if a compromise bill could be found. While progress was made, the final bill still failed to address the business community’ s concerns.
HB 1506 gender pay equity
Passed / AWB Opposed
House Bill 1506, sponsored by Rep. Tana Senn, D-Mercer Island, was the primary bill used during the negotiations. This was Senn’ s previous pay equity bill retooled from the last three years. The bill modifies the Equal Pay Act by defining“ similarly employed” and modifying defenses. It prohibits discrimination in providing employment opportunities based on gender. It further prohibits retaliation for certain workplace discussions about wages and other matters. Unfortunately, it still contained several elements of concern for employers.
This bill stalled in the Senate, but prior to cutoff it was amended. The amendments included a provision allowing for a 10-year look-back as well as a preemption clause.
Sagiv Barmor of Allegiance Staffing in Tukwila, center, and Heidi Sharpe of TrueBlue in Tacoma, left, with AWB Government Affairs Director Bob Battles testifying before the House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee on Jan. 23.
The House and Senate moved the bill in to committee to reconcile the differences. The consensus committee was made up of two members from each majority party caucuses and one member from each of the minority caucuses.
The consensus committee amended the bill as follows: 1. It removed preemption; 2. It changed the 10-year look back to four years. Although this is an improvement, it still requires employers to keep records longer than any other wage of discrimination law in the state; and,
3. It addressed the dual causes of action by mandating a dismissal of administrative actions if an employee brings a civil suit in superior court. The committee amendments were adopted, and the bill passed. AWB pushed to keep preemption in the final version to prevent a patchwork of policies throughout the state, similar to what we now have with paid sick-leave policies.
There are four different paid sick leave policies— Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane and the state. Likewise, there are four different minimum wage polices— Seattle, Tacoma, SeaTac and the rest of the state. This is a patchwork of regulations that results in higher cost for products and a substantial burden on businesses, especially small- business owners. We should be looking for solutions like the work that was done on Paid Family and Medical Leave( PFML) last year as the template for making this as simple as possible for businesses, especially small businesses, to comply with the law. Preemption was part of the PFML legislation. It was widely accepted that multiple regulatory schemes do not work. Because the final version removed a preemption clause AWB remained opposed to the legislation. Several amendments, as well as the bill’ s final passage, were included in AWB’ s vote record.
Bill considered as part of AWB’ s voting record
Favorable outcome for Washington businesses
Missed Opportunities
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