Opinion: Some worker rights get a poster, others get fine print

Elizabeth New questions why Washington state highlights some workplace protections while Janus First Amendment rights for public employees remain hidden in official materials.

Elizabeth New says public workers should be well-informed about their First Amendment rights. That should not be left in the fine print

Elizabeth New
Washington Policy Center

When I researched House Bill 2355 — which creates new rules for hiring domestic workers in private homes — I was struck by a line in the fiscal note. It said that $33,500 was needed in fiscal year 2027 to revise, translate and reprint existing worker-rights publications to reflect the new law, along with staffing costs tied to those revised materials.

Elizabeth New (Hovde), Washington Policy Center

Tens of thousands is not a lot in relation to the state budget or the total fiscal note, which projects ongoing costs of about $2.4 million to $2.5 million per biennium. But the spending is revealing: Public money is allocated to update worker-rights materials when the state wants a new law understood.

Fair enough. If lawmakers create new requirements, people should know about them — and that should include household employers, not just workers, because they are the ones expected to comply.

But that line item also highlights a state failure: No urgency has been shown in informing public employees of one of their most important existing rights.

In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Janus v. AFSCME that public employees cannot be forced to subsidize a union as a condition of keeping their jobs. That is not a minor procedural detail. It is a First Amendment protection. It goes to the heart of freedom of speech and association. Yet years later, that right still does not receive the same prominence in Washington state’s common worker-facing materials that other labor protections receive when the Legislature decides they matter.

I’ve sent policy papers to lawmakers urging them to expand awareness of public employees’ Janus rights. They could do so easily upon a worker’s hire, but it is not a requirement. Neutral information about this important workplace right is hard to find, and it is certainly not included in the posters and pamphlets that broadly tell workers about their rights.

The state further blurs the line between worker choice and institutional pressure when public employers serve as dues collectors for unions. A state law also requires public employers to give unions the private contact information of their employees — including a home phone, address and private email — and it was just expanded. Read more about House Bill 2091 here.

Information about Janus rights lives in an obscure corner of state government that I had to search for, knowing correct terms and timelines. The right to join or not join a union is not plainly laid out in the state’s worker-rights publications. The state has not given this right the same prominence it gives other worker protections.

That contrast is hard to miss. If information about these new domestic worker rights matters, information should also matter when the right in question is a constitutional protection already recognized by the nation’s highest court.

Washington state has made a policy choice about what it wants to spotlight. It has chosen to be energetic and visible about things like meal breaks, pay and overtime. It has been far less energetic and far less visible when it comes to highlighting the right of public employees not to fund union activities and speech.

That imbalance deserves attention. The issue is not whether domestic workers should be informed of new rights. Of course they should. The issue is whether lawmakers apply that same principle consistently. Public workers should be well-informed about their First Amendment rights. That should not be left in the fine print.

Elizabeth New is the director of the Centers for Health Care and Worker Rights at the Washington Policy Center. She is a Clark County resident.