14th District State Representative Gina Mosbrucker is happy two bills she sponsored to help people with domestic violence and identity theft have been signed into law by Governor Jay Inslee. The first bill is the result of years of effort to create a task force to identify the role of the workplace in helping to curb domestic violence.
House Bill 1315 requires the Department of Commerce to convene a task force on domestic violence and workplace resources that would review the role of the workplace in the lives of people going through domestic violence, the appropriate role of employers and employees in helping to reduce the incidence of domestic violence, and whether legislation is needed to address the issues. Mosbrucker says "We learned from domestic abuse survivors that often the only safe place they can go to be away from their abuser is at the workplace. Many survivors want to break away from the cycle of domestic violence, but they are too afraid and don't know how to get away, this bill puts together a group to help answer the question of how businesses and the workplace can help create a safe pathway of escape and support." The group or task force will include members from business, hospitality and retail associations, labor, tribal members and a survivor of domestic violence. A group report will be ready for lawmakers in December.
The other successful bill is House Bill 1455. The measure prevents the Employment Security Department (ESD) and Labor and Industries (L&I) from requiring and using full Social Security numbers from people who need their services.
"Hundreds of thousands of Washington consumers, many of whom are our constituents, had personal information they've provided to state agencies, compromised," said Mosbrucker. "This bill asks Employment Security and Labor and Industries to examine their practices of how they disclose individual Social Security numbers in agency correspondence with third party entities It also requires those agencies, whenever possible, to institute procedures to encrypt or remove the use of a full nine-digit Social Security number."

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