Pulp and Paper Workers union members testify on HB 1491. (Image courtesy of TVW)
Your employer would no longer be allowed to randomly search your car on their property under a bill heard by state lawmakers.
Companies are allowed to prohibit items they consider dangerous from the workplace, but under House Bill 1491, they would no longer be able to search your private vehicle unless they have probable cause with concern about an immediate threat to worker safety. The bill allows for searches of company-owned vehicles, legal searches by law enforcement officers and searches at military and State Department of Corrections facilities. It also specifies that employees are allowed to store legally-obtained private property in their vehicles while at work.
The sponsor, Representative Ed Orcutt (R-Kalama) was joined by several mill workers with stories about being reprimanded for having otherwise legal items stored in their cars. “The Constitution protects against this type of search,” Orcutt says, “I’m not sure why the Constitution is not taking care of this and that we need a bill, but apparently we do, and I think it’s important that we do have this in our statutes to make it clear that people can’t come and just search just because you’re an employee.”
Several members of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers shared their experiences with the House Labor and Workplace Standards Committee, including one who got written up because he forgot about an unopened 12-pack of beer he left in his car after a July 4th fishing trip with his father. Another said living near the Columbia River, many of them are fisherman, and one of them had a fillet knife in a locked tackle box with a blade long enough that it fell under items prohibited by the company. Yet another says he worked at the same mill, where his step-father worked for 40 years. His mother and step-father lived pretty remotely, so he says his mom would send his dad to work with grocery lists. After one shopping trip, he was stopped immediately upon arrival for work, where security was waiting to search his truck and found a bottle of wine in the grocery bags. He says his step-dad went from having a flawless record for four decades to being one step away from losing his job because the wine was a prohibited item.
Tammy Fellin with the Department of Labor and Industries says the bill sets L & I up to investigate an employee complaint after a search. Fellin says, “The Department is tasked with determining whether or not that was a legitimate search. It’s not an area of expertise that we have.” Fellin says the bill is also missing a definition of probable cause and has no retaliation protections for workers who complain, so she offered suggestions for several technical amendments we’ll likely see ahead of the first vote on this bill.
You can watch the hearing on TVW here. The hearing begins with a staff report and Rep. Orcutt’s testimony on the bill with public testimony beginning at about the 15:45 mark.
