Amid what seems like ever more poisonous partisan political bickering comes a good example, forged by business representatives, labor interests, other stakeholders, and the Washington state Legislature, of what can happen when people come together to work through thorny issues.

The thorny issue in this case, from the perspective of many businesses, is a statewide paid family and medical leave law that the Legislature approved last Friday, along with a state budget, at the end of a second special session as the state’s fiscal year drew to a close.

The Association of Washington Business and other participating industry associations deserve big praise for engaging the other parties in lengthy, thoughtful, strategic planning aimed at coming up with a balanced law that all parties could live with. 

They wisely realized, reinforced by a study showing broad support statewide support for paid family and medical leave, that simply opposing such legislation was going to be counterproductive. Proponents of the legislation, had they taken the matter to voters through the initiative process, could have included provisions that would have been far more objectionable and damaging to businesses.

Passage of the $43.7 billion state budget captured most of the media attention late last week, overshadowing the approval of family and medical leave law, but here are a few of its provisions, per the Associated Press and industry sources:

 • Beginning in 2020, eligible workers will be entitled to 12 weeks of either paid medical leave or family leave, or 16 weeks for a combination of both, in a 12-month period. Women with pregnancy complications can take two additional weeks.

• Employers and employees both will contribute to the program through a payroll tax. Premiums of 0.4 percent of wages will be collected beginning Jan. 1, 2019, with employees paying 63 percent and employers paying 37 percent of those premiums.

• Importantly here, employers with fewer than 50 workers—that includes roughly 95 percent of all businesses in Spokane County—will be exempt from paying premiums. Regardless of business size, though, employees will pay into the system and will be eligible to receive benefits.

• Employees qualify for the program after working 820 hours. Weekly benefits will be calculated based on a     percentage of the employee’s wages, but will be capped at $1,000.

The 2007 Legislature approved a family leave program, but failed to create a funding mechanism for it. This year, legislators took that additional step.

To be sure, some Washington business owners—while wanting to do all they can for their employees—remain concerned about the cumulative effect of newly approved minimum wage and sick leave mandates, soon to be compounded with added family and medical leave expenses.

For now, though, it’s nice to note that business interests helped forge a bipartisan legislative compromise, using a model that hopefully can be replicated in the future.