FINAL BILL REPORT

SSB 6544

C 294 L 18

Synopsis as Enacted

Brief Description: Establishing the future of work task force.

Sponsors: Senate Committee on Ways & Means (originally sponsored by Senators Chase, Brown, Hasegawa, Wagoner, Wellman, Takko and Conway).

Senate Committee on Economic Development & International Trade

Senate Committee on Ways & Means

House Committee on Higher Education

House Committee on Appropriations

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: 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 may meet, as appropriate, up to four times a year.

Subject to appropriations, the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board must perform the following duties under direction of the Task Force:

• 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 by December 31, 2018, describing the plan and methods to be used by the Task Force; and

• report by December 31, 2019 recommendations of research and activities the task force would complete if it were to continue.

The act is null and void if funding is not provided by June 30, 2018.

Votes on Final Passage: