SENATE BILL REPORT

SB 6544

As of February 2, 2018

Title: An act relating to establishing the future of work task force.

Brief Description: Establishing the future of work task force.

Sponsors: Senators Chase, Brown, Hasegawa, Wagoner, Wellman, Takko and Conway.

Brief History:

Committee Activity: Economic Development & International Trade: 1/25/18.

Staff: Greg Vogel (786-7413)

Background: Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board (Workforce Board). The Workforce Board is a partnership of labor, business, and government dedicated to helping Washington State residents obtain and succeed in family-wage jobs, while meeting employers' needs for skilled workers. As a state agency the Workforce Board oversees a workforce development system that includes 16 education and training programs receiving almost $1 billion annually in state and federal funds.

Summary of Bill: The Future of Work Task Force (Task Force) is established to:

• inventory and periodically assess trends and factors that are current or potential drivers of transformation of industries and work in Washington;

• identify policies and practices that will help Washington's businesses, workers, and communities thrive economically, while responding to rapid changes in technology, workplace practices, environmental and security issues, and global interdependence;

• recommend mechanisms and structures for sustainable industry sector partnerships through which employers and workers can collaborate to support their sector's growth in Washington; and

• create a policy framework that supports a talent development pipeline and lifelong learning structure that:

  1. prepares Washington's young people to navigate careers and workplaces of the future;

  2. helps workers keep their skills up-to-date or retrain for new careers when needed;

  3. enables attainment of credentials that are portable, transferable, and cost and time efficient;

  4. provides opportunities for instructional staff to keep pace with changes in their disciplines and related occupations; and

  5. allows for collaborative applied research between businesses, instructional staff, and students to learn concurrently about new technology and assist companies with adoption.

The Task Force will consist of two members from the House of Representatives and two members from the Senate, appointed by the majority and minority leader of the two major caucuses in the House and the Senate, and six business and six labor representatives, appointed by the Workforce Board.

The Task Force is required to meet four times a year and must perform the following duties:

• develop and maintain an inventory of the current and future trends and factors that drive transformation of industries and work in Washington over the next 25 years;

• research best and promising practices from state, national, and international sources, and develop case examples;

• gather input from employers and workers from the major industrial sectors of Washington, via surveys and community forums, ensuring that every region of the state is consulted;

• identify relevant metrics and recommend a possible dashboard for tracking the state's success, addressing future of work issues, including analysis of what data sets are readily available and what new data might need to be collected and by whom;

• consult with public and not-for-profit organizations that support businesses or their workforce to identify policy or structural barriers that hinder the ability of not-for-profit organizations to effectively support business and workforce development in a transformational environment;

• make an initial set of recommendations and a research design report describing the plan and methods to be used by the task force by December 31, 2018; and

• beginning in 2019, and due by December 1 of each year, make an annual report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature and the Governor on task force activities and recommendations. .

Appropriation: The sum of $350,000, or as much thereof as may be necessary, is appropriated for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019, from the general fund to the Workforce Board for the purposes of the act.

Fiscal Note: Requested on January 24, 2018.

Creates Committee/Commission/Task Force that includes Legislative members: Yes.

Effective Date: Ninety days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Staff Summary of Public Testimony: PRO: This bill is part of a broader look at the workforce and what we do with the workforce as society and the economy changes—the changes in how people go to work and what they do. The bill does have the potential for duplication of efforts. The state has a lot of plans and metrics related to workforce development. While not exactly tackling the topics in this legislation, the programs does add pieces of the topic to the conversation. There is a need to focus on actionable data and scalable examples of promising practices.

OTHER: The Workforce Board will address this topic further in today's work session, but the bill addresses the issues that the state, and the rest of the country, is facing in terms of transformation in industries and the work sector, relating to changing technologies and automation.

Persons Testifying: PRO: Senator Maralyn Chase, Prime Sponsor; Katherine Mahoney, State Board Comm and Tech Colleges. OTHER: Eleni Papadakis, Workforce Board.

Persons Signed In To Testify But Not Testifying: No one.