New Washington bill would let state workers influence how agencies use AI

Washington state lawmakers last month proposed a bill that would grant state government employees bargaining power over how artificial intelligence tools are used inside their agencies.

“Our state employees, our public sector employees, are asking to be able to bargain on AI where it impacts their job description and their salaries,” Rep. Lisa Parshley, the primary sponsor of House Bill 1622, told StateScoop in an interview. “And this makes some sense to me, because AI is going to potentially impact these areas.”

The bill would create an exemption within the Personnel System Reform Act of 2002, which gave managers the authority to decide how technologies are used. But when the law was enacted, Parshley said, the digital technologies it referred to were things like pagers and flip phones.

“[The labor union] even admits back then this didn’t seem like anything that was important to bargain over,” said Parshley, a Democrat. “But back then, we also didn’t know AI technology was going to become what it is. And it seems to be accelerating in the last couple months.”

Bill Kehoe, Washington’s chief information officer, told StateScoop last year that he was exploring using generative AI tools for language translation and personalizing digital services. He also noted that his hope was not use AI to replace employees, but to free them up to focus on higher-value tasks.

“When it first came out, it was like this cool thing but we really didn’t know how to use it,” Kehoe told StateScoop last May. “And now I think we’re getting much more educated about the practicality of, hey, let’s really look at some use cases, but let’s also have a good foundation around security, privacy, governance in place.”

Parshley said the sticking point of the bill revolves around the state’s definition of artificial intelligence.

She said opponents of the bill, such as the Office of Financial Management, which operates the government’s human resources division, argue that the word “technology” under the 2002 law is an umbrella term that can range from basic software updates to new equipment, meaning that employees could raise claims against any piece of technology that uses AI, potentially slowing productivity and incurring costs.

“The Office of Financial Management of has to bargain with labor on a lot of situations,” Parshley said. “The definition — I think that’s mainly where the biggest concern is — [is] that labor could potentially ask to bargain every time AI is even mentioned.”

The Washington State AI Task Force, which makes recommendations to the state legislature on guidelines and best use cases, last year published an inaugural report that does not contain a definition of AI, but recommended setting “ethical artificial intelligence and guiding principles.”

In 2023, Washington Technology Solutions, the state’s IT office, published guidelines for responsible use of generative AI, defining the tool as “technology that can create content, including text, images, audio, or video, when prompted by a user.”

According to the Washington State Legislature website, the proposed bill is scheduled for an executive session in the House Committee on Labor and Workplace Standards on Friday.