Increased tax load, additional regulation, expanded benefit mandates, and the emissions cap and permit requirements of the Climate Commitment Act are legislative focal points for one of the state’s most prominent business organizations this year.
“The first is tax and fiscal policy. It’s not a sexy topic, but it’s a really important topic,” said Kris Johnson, president of the Association of Washington Business. “We need to fix the CCA and make sure that we can stabilize that program as it goes forward.”
AWB is tracking bills from every angle during the 60-day legislative session, anything that might impact the business climate in Washington. If it affects energy baseload, manufacturing, the housing supply, or workforce development, it’s of interest to AWB.
“For far too long, we’ve been making it harder, more complex and more expensive to run a business in Washington state. So let’s put a pause on that. Let’s start making it easier,” said Johnson. “We still face a lot of uncertainty out there. There’s a great degree of uncertainty about the economy, what’s happening with the economy. Are we going to have a recession? Is it a cooling economy? We continue to see pretty high inflation, especially in Washingtonians, everyday life, about high prices throughout there. So the uncertainty around the economy is certainly real.”
The Washington State Labor Council’s 2024 legislative agenda includes bills that would require health insurers to cover fertility treatment, ban mandatory attendance of workplace meetings with political, religious, or anti-union themes, and extend unemployment benefits to striking workers.
“When workers make the difficult decision to go on strike, it’s not a decision that they make lightly. It’s a decision that impacts their wages, their benefits, their families and their communities. So allowing workers to access unemployment insurance when they are on strike provides them a small amount of coverage so that they can meet their basic needs while they’re exercising their basic rights in the workplace,” said WSLC President April Sims.
The business organization leader doesn’t see it the same way.
“I think we need to remember what the intent was and why it was set up. It was set up to help employees who lose their job at no fault of their own and who are actively seeking jobs to have an unemployment insurance benefit. So that’s the intent of it. So of the system in the model. We also have the second highest benefit paid out system of any state in the country. So, again, a reminder of what the system’s for, help people who lose their jobs at no fault of their own and are actively seeking employment,” said Johnson.
In response to criticism of the proposed strike benefits policy, Sims replied, “Unemployment insurance is a benefit that workers earn through their labor and allowing them to access that benefit when they need it the most, I think is an important part of the culture that we want to create here in Washington state. Washington would be following states like New York and New Jersey who already offer this benefit for striking workers. And this is a tactic that the employer uses at the bargaining table to stall contract negotiations. When workers decide to go on strike, when they vote to go on strike, it’s because the employer isn’t meeting their basic obligation to come to the table and negotiate in good faith.”
Environmental rules that shut down projections and cut jobs have sometimes put unions at odds with traditional political allies.
As far as the Climate Commitment Act is concerned, Sims says there will be new opportunities for union workers, but insists labor organizations be involved in the decisions ahead.
“It’s an exciting time right now. I mean, the Washington State Labor Council, in conjunction with our affiliated unions, just launched a new organization called Climate Jobs Washington, which is really consolidating labor’s voice as it relates to climate policy and really looking at climate policy as economic policy, giving us an opportunity to engage in the solutions, knowing that we are closest to the problem. And so when we talk about the transition to a clean energy economy, I think we want to be clear that workers want to be a part of that conversation. We want to be at the table. We want to talk about what it looks like to transition away from those fossil fuel intensive industries and what it looks like to create new jobs in this emerging economy that are good union jobs, that pay a livable wage and provide a glide path to the middle class,” said Sims.