The secretary of the department of social and health services shall establish pilot projects that enable grants to be used as a wage subsidy. The department of social and health services shall comply with applicable federal statutes and regulations, and shall seek any waivers from the federal government necessary to operate the employment partnership program. The projects shall be available on an individual case-by-case basis or subject to the limitations outlined in RCW
74.25A.040 for the start-up or reopening of a plant under worker ownership. The projects shall be subject to the following criteria:
(1) It shall be a voluntary program and no person may have any sanction applied for failure to participate.
(2) Employment positions established by this chapter shall not be created as the result of, nor result in, any of the following:
(a) Displacement of current employees, including overtime currently worked by these employees;
(b) The filling of positions that would otherwise be promotional opportunities for current employees;
(c) The filling of a position, before compliance with applicable personnel procedures or provisions of collective bargaining agreements;
(d) The filling of a position created by termination, layoff, or reduction in workforce;
(e) The filling of a work assignment customarily performed by a worker in a job classification within a recognized collective bargaining unit in that specific work site, or the filling of a work assignment in any bargaining unit in which funded positions are vacant or in which regular employees are on layoff;
(f) A strike, lockout, or other bona fide labor dispute, or violation of any existing collective bargaining agreement between employees and employers;
(g) Decertification of any collective bargaining unit.
(3) Wages shall be paid at the usual and customary rate of comparable jobs and may include a training wage if permitted by applicable federal statutes and regulations;
(4) A recoupment process shall recover state supplemented wages from an employer when a job does not last six months following the subsidization period for reasons other than the employee voluntarily quitting or being fired for good cause as determined by the local employment partnership council under rules prescribed by the secretary;
(5) Job placements shall have promotional opportunities or reasonable opportunities for wage increases;
(6) Other necessary support services such as training, day care, medical insurance, and transportation shall be provided to the extent possible;
(7) Employers shall provide monetary matching funds of at least fifty percent of total wages;
(8) Wages paid to participants shall be a minimum of five dollars an hour; and
(9) The projects shall target the populations in the priority and for the purposes set forth in *RCW
74.25.020, to the extent that necessary support services are available.
