AN ACT Relating to allowing the use of paid sick leave to prepare for or participate in certain immigration proceedings;
HB 1875 expands Washington’s paid sick leave law to expressly allow employees to use accrued paid sick leave to prepare for or participate in certain immigration proceedings. The bill adds immigration-related absences to the list of authorized uses of paid sick leave, alongside existing uses for an employee’s own illness or injury, family care, domestic violence leave, and related health or emergency closures. It also specifies that employees may use leave to prepare for or participate in judicial or administrative immigration proceedings involving the employee or a family member.
The bill also creates parallel paid sick leave rules for transportation network company drivers, such as app-based ride-share drivers. For those drivers, it establishes accrual, carryover, use, verification, compensation, and anti-retaliation provisions tied to earned paid sick time, and it requires companies to provide a system for requesting and tracking leave. The bill includes detailed definitions for family members and documentation standards, and it limits what verification may reveal about immigration status or protections.
HB 1875 amends Washington’s paid sick leave statutes in RCW chapter 49.46 to add immigration-proceeding leave as a protected use of paid sick leave and to clarify employer obligations around notice, verification, carryover, reinstatement, and anti-retaliation. It also extends a separate earned paid sick time framework to transportation network company drivers, imposing new compliance duties on ride-share platforms and creating enforceable leave rights for drivers. Employers and transportation network companies may not penalize workers for lawful use of leave, and the bill restricts documentation practices to protect privacy regarding immigration status.
The bill appears to have received generally favorable but not unanimous support. It passed the House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee 6-3, the House floor 58-39, the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee 5-4, and the Senate floor 29-19. Those vote margins suggest a clear majority in favor, but with meaningful opposition at both committee and floor stages. No committee transcript was provided, so the available record shows support strong enough to advance the bill, but not broad bipartisan consensus.
The main point of contention is the expansion of paid sick leave beyond traditional health-related uses to cover immigration proceedings, which opponents likely viewed as an additional employer mandate and a policy choice tied to immigration enforcement and family status. Another likely source of disagreement is the bill’s detailed rules for transportation network companies, including accrual, verification limits, compensation timing, and anti-retaliation protections, which impose new administrative and financial obligations on app-based platforms. Supporters, by contrast, appear to have emphasized worker access to leave for legal proceedings, family care, and privacy protections around immigration-related documentation.