The 2025 legislative session ended on April 27, 2025, with Washington Governor Bob Ferguson signing multiple employment-related bills into law. We separately reported on three of those bills in our last newsletter (expansion of the Fair Chance Act, paid leave for immigration proceedings, and prohibition of driver’s … Read more
On May 13, 2025, Governor Ferguson signed ESSB 5525, creating significant obligations for Washington employers conducting specific mass layoffs and business closings. Since 1989, the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) has required employers with 100 or more full-time employees to provide advance notice … Read more
Governor Ferguson has signed HB 1747, which amends Washington’s Fair Chance Act and further restricts employers’ use of criminal records in making employment decisions. As we reported in 2018, Washington’s “Fair Chance Act” prohibits most employers from asking about criminal history before deciding whether an applicant meets … Read more
The Institutes’ Pete Miller and Francis Bouchard of Marsh McLennan discuss how AI is transforming property/casualty insurance as the industry attacks the climate crisis. “Climate” is not a popular word in Washington, D.C., today, so it would take a certain audacity to hold an event whose title prominently includes it in the heart of the … Read more
As promised, Washington’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) updated its rules for protecting employees from wildfire smoke, incorporating changes the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made to its color-coded Air Quality Index (AQI) in May 2024. As we previously reported, when the EPA published its … Read more