One of the services the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO provides its affiliated unions is legislative education and advocacy. As with collective bargaining, by joining forces and speaking with a united voice on public policy issues affecting working families, labor has greater influence. There are more than 500,000 union members in Washington — 16.5% of the non-agricultural workforce — ranking us as the 3rd most unionized state in the nation. With few exceptions, the positions taken by the WSLC are on issues affecting ALL working people, not just union members. From the equal pay to minimum wage to workers’ compensation, the WSLC is proud to advocate for rank-and-file union members and for all working families.
2025 WSLC Legislative Agenda
Working people are facing an affordability crisis, driven by skyrocketing housing and healthcare costs, pay that doesn’t keep up with the cost of living, and unnecessary barriers to growing good jobs here in Washington. Insufficient investment in healthcare and childcare has worsened this crisis. 
In 2025, the State Legislature should avoid deep cuts to programs that make life more affordable, and instead build on past successes, taking bold action to ensure good wages, protect workers on the job, and empower more working people to organize for better pay and working conditions.
The Council’s priorities are laid out in the WSLC’s 2025 Legislative Agenda. In addition to what appears in this agenda, the WSLC will be supporting other legislation that is championed by its affiliated unions and a range of issues to address economic opportunity and justice.
More information about some of the priority legislative proposals supported by the WSLC:
Unemployment for Striking Workers: More than 30% of Americans have less than $400 in savings. Rather than negotiate a fair contract, some employers weaponize this economic instability to force a strike. Washington should join New York, New Jersey and Maine in allowing workers to access unemployment insurance after more than two weeks on strike. This bill will help level the playing field, discourage economic hardship as a bargaining strategy, and promote good-faith contract negotiations.
Child Labor on Job Sites: A child was seriously injured on a jobsite in 2023. Legislation would tighten the nexus between school credit and workplace experience; increase financial penalties for egregious behavior and/or negligence; and offer clear legislative authority for L&I acceptance and denial of temporary exception requests related to child labor laws.
Minimum Wage and Paid Vacation: In Washington State, a single adult working full-time needs $25.60/hour to afford basic necessities. Too many workers make far below this threshold, pushing people into unsustainable work schedules with no opportunity for needed rest. 
Child Care Workforce Standards Board: With over 6,000 licensed facilities, child care in Washington is a scattered workforce; organizing and collectively bargaining one facility at a time makes it difficult to raise standards industry-wide. This bill would create a Child Care Workforce Standards Board to work with L&I and DCYF to set standards for childcare providers in our state, including wages and benefits, staffing levels, safety and professional development. It can also craft holistic solutions that support childcare providers, workers, and the communities they serve, and review public funding.
Permitting and Siting: These bills would ease the path to building more of the infrastructure we need for climate resilience and good jobs in Washington, including creating exemptions to expedite permitting for upgrades for existing power grid transmission corridors, and continuing to improve state and local permitting processes to increase efficiency.
Public Sector AI: Public employees are seeing unregulated AI integrated into their workplaces. While AI has potential to be a powerful tool, it also poses threats of outsourcing, poor quality tech, and discrimination within AI tools. Under collective bargaining laws, public sector unions cannot bargain on technology in the workplace. However, AI is unprecedented in its scale, impact, and capabilities; its use should be bargainable to protect workers. This bill will exclude AI from the technology clause in management rights.
Fund Services to Make Washington More Affordable: Additionally, the Washington State Labor Council is advocating to protect the public services that help people pay their bills and live safely in their communities by making mega-millionaires, billionaires, and the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share.
For updates about the status of these bills — and Action Alerts explaining how you can help support their passage — subscribe to The STAND. You can also see an archive of all the legislative news in The STAND’s State Government section.
Media inquiries, please contact WSLC Communications Director Sarah Tucker at stucker@wslc.org.
2024 Legislative Report & Voting Record
The 2024 edition of the Washington State Labor Council’s Legislative Report is now available. (Download the full 18-page PDF.) This annual report summarizes the fate of legislation affecting working families in each year’s session of the Washington State Legislature, and how each legislator voted on these issues. (You can also download the WSLC 2024 Voting Record only.) As always, many union members came to Olympia during the 2023 session to share their personal stories at hearings, or meet with their legislators, or demonstrate outside the State Capitol. As documented in this report, their voices were heard on a number of important issues. Rank-and-file labor activism continues to be the key to successfully advancing pro-worker policies.
Printed copies of the WSLC’s 2024 Legislative Report will soon be mailed to all affiliated unions and distributed at the 2024 WSLC’s COPE Convention in May and 2024 Constitutional Convention in July. Officers, staff and rank-and-file members of WSLC-affiliated unions can request additional copies.
Previous years’ Legislative Reports:
2013 — 2014 — 2015 — 2016 — 2017 — 2018 — 2019 — 2020 — 2021 — 2022 — 2023
Previous years’ WSLC Voting Records:
2003 — 2004 — 2005 — 2006 — 2007 — 2008 — 2009 — 2010 — 2011 — 2012 — 2013 — 2014 — 2015 — 2016 — 2017 — 2018 — 2019 — 2020 — 2021 — 2022 — 2023
For earlier WSLC Voting Records and/or WSLC Legislative Reports, email Sarah Tucker.