Bill
SB 5422
Requires public employers to bargain with unions over AI adoption or changes that affect employee wages or performance evaluations.
Status snapshot
- Bill number: SB 5422 (multiple versions across sessions)
- Introduced: Jan 17, 2023; reintroduced Jan 22, 2025
- Most recent action (per provided timeline): 1st substitute (S-1749.1) passed Senate Labor & Commerce (majority), referred to Senate Ways & Means (2/21/2025). Public hearings and an executive session took place in Ways & Means on 2/25 and 2/28/2025 (no final action listed).
- Note: SB 5422 has appeared in different forms in different sessions. The 2023 text addressed school-based Medicaid behavioral health reimbursement; the 2025 substitute focuses on collective bargaining rights related to certain uses of artificial intelligence (AI). The substitute (S-1749.1) is the version that most recently advanced through committee.
Summary of the 2023 version (S-0444.2)
- Purpose: Expand access to school-based behavioral health services for Medicaid-enrolled students by removing a managed-care network barrier.
- Key provision:
- Adds a new section to chapter 71.24 RCW requiring a managed care organization (MCO) to reimburse medically necessary behavioral health services provided within a school by a licensed or certified behavioral health agency to a Medicaid-enrolled student even if that agency is out-of-network — unless the MCO already provides equivalent colocated, in‑network services at the school.
- Who is affected:
- Medicaid-enrolled students receiving school-based behavioral health services, licensed/certified behavioral health agencies, school districts, and managed care organizations.
- Intended impact:
- Increase timely access to school‑based care (especially in rural/underserved areas), reduce access barriers (transportation, time), and improve Medicaid service attendance.
- Procedural/timeline:
- First read 1/17/2023; referred to Health & Long Term Care (no further action shown in this summary).
Summary of the 2025 substitute (S-1749.1) — current active version
- Purpose: Require employers to bargain with exclusive bargaining representatives over the decision to adopt or modify certain uses of AI when those decisions affect employee wages or performance evaluations.
- Key provisions:
- Amends RCW 41.56.021 and 41.80.040 (chapters governing public-sector collective bargaining scope and management rights).
- Adds new sections to chapter 41.56 RCW and chapter 41.80 RCW stating employers must bargain over decisions to adopt AI technology or modify its uses if adoption/modification affects employees’ wages or performance evaluations.
- Defines “artificial intelligence” (for purposes of the act) to mean machine‑learning and related technologies that use data to train statistical models to perform tasks normally associated with human intelligence (e.g., computer vision, natural language processing, decision making, content generation). “Machine learning” is defined as model development using data and algorithms to infer and automatically adapt.
- Preserves existing management rights language that generally reserves the use of technology as non‑bargainable, but creates the specified bargaining obligation in the new sections.
- Contracts in effect prior to the effective date remain in force until they expire or are reopened/renewed.
- Who is affected:
- Public employers covered by chapters 41.56 and 41.80 RCW (state agencies and institutions of higher education covered by those chapters), their employees/recognized bargaining units, and public-sector decision-makers procuring or deploying AI.
- Intended/likely impact:
- Expands collective bargaining scope to include certain AI adoption decisions that materially affect compensation or performance measurement, potentially requiring negotiations before implementing AI that changes evaluations or pay structures.
- May slow or reshape AI procurement/deployment in covered public entities, increase employer-union negotiation workload, and provide employees more influence over AI-driven evaluation/pay changes.
- Procedural/timeline:
- 1/22/2025: First reading; referred to Labor & Commerce.
- 2/21/2025: Labor & Commerce executive action — majority report recommend substitute do pass; referred to Ways & Means.
- 2/25 & 2/28/2025: Ways & Means public hearing and executive session (no final vote recorded in provided timeline).
Implications and considerations
- Fiscal/administrative: The school-based Medicaid provision (2023 version) would affect MCO payment practices and could have Medicaid budget implications; the 2025 substitute may have fiscal impacts associated with bargaining costs and potential delays or conditions on technology adoption. Official fiscal notes would detail estimated costs.
- Scope limits: The 2025 substitute does not make all AI uses subject to bargaining — only adoption or modifications that affect wages or performance evaluations. Existing collective bargaining agreements in force are preserved until expiration/renewal.
- Overlap: Because SB 5422 has been used for different policy proposals in different sessions, the active policy under consideration depends on the current session’s version — as of the latest committee actions, the 2025 substitute addressing AI and bargaining is the operative text advancing.
Compiled from official sources — confirm details with the bill’s official record.
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