Articles written by Mark Harmsworth
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OPINION
While January 8, 2024 is the first official day of the Washington State legislative session next year, things are already happening in Olympia. Legislators have the ability to ‘pre-file’ bills to get...
OPINION
OLYMPIA–If you are not an employer, you may not care about exempt and non-exempt employee salary ranges, but changes to an obscure state law is causing many employers to lay off staff and reduce avail...
GUEST COMMENTARY
Washington State Labor and Industries (L&I) has announced that 2023 minimum wage rate will be set at $15.74 which is a $1.25 increase over 2022. In a press release on the L&I website, the agency...
OPINION
Update October 4, 2021: The Cares Website continues to experience problems and periods of long downtime. After last year’s abject failure to deliver an unemployment benefit system capable of h...
OPINION
Last year, the requirement for workers laid off during the pandemic to be looking for a job to continue to receive unemployment benefits was waived as part of the COVID-19 emergency orders. Now that...
OPINION
New COVID workplace restrictions, issued by Washington State Labor and Industries (L&I) late last Friday, May 21st, require employers to check employee vaccine documents before allowing relaxation of...
OPINION
Senate Bill 5114 (SB 5114), authored by Senator John Braun (R) and Senator Mark Mullet (D), was heard in committee Wednesday morning in the Senate Government and Elections committee. The bill intends...
OPINION
In what seems now to be a weekly occurrence, Washingtons Employment Security Department’s (ESD) inadequate systems have created a problem for unemployment claimants during the COVID-19 pandemic. A b...
OPINION
knew on May 1st that the Employment Trust Fund balance would be eventually depleted but did not admit this publicly until June 30th. Prompted by an article published by Washington Policy Center (WPC)...
OPINION
SEATTLE–On Sunday night in Seattle, a group of protestors broke into a local car repair shop, Car Tender, with the intent of stealing as much cash as possible and ultimately burn the business down. T...
