Cgipson

For many years there has been a national movement to mandate that private businesses provide paid sick days to their employees. This mandate was introduced into the Washington state legislature early last decade and went nowhere. Now, proponents are taking aim at cities in order to get legislation passed. Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Milwaukee and the state of Connecticut are the only jurisdictions that have a paid sick day ordinance in place, though several other cities have seen similar legislation introduced.

Late Sunday evening the Governor, flanked by the four caucus heads, unveiled the outline of a new compromise on workers' compensation.

San Francisco, often the breeding ground for interesting public policy proposals, decided recently to back off its mandate that would have required retailers of cell phones to label them with radiation levels and pass out material explaining the level of SAR in each device (SAR= Specific Absorption Rate).

This has not been done anywhere else and faced stiff opposition from the wireless industry, which filed suit against the ordinance last year.

CEO Magazine, which issued its annual "Best/Worst States for Business" this week, ranked Washington state below average at 34th. The more telling statistic from this survey of over 500 CEOs is that our state has fallen 18 spots over the last five years. In 2006 Washington ranked an above average 16th.

The survey takes into account "Taxes and Regulation," "Workforce Quality," and "Living Environment."

The best states: Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia.

An interesting story in today's The Wall Street Journal highlights why it can be dangerous for businesses and government to become too intertwined.

Yesterday, the House refused to allow a vote on SB 5566, the Senate's bi-partisan bill that would allow for voluntary settlement agreements (VSA) in the state's workers' compensation system. This is a mechanism that 44 other states utilize to help keep system costs down.

Level 3 Communications today announced it would purchase Global Crossing for about $1.9 billion. Both of these companies are long-haul Internet backbone providers, which do the majority of transiting of information between Internet Service Providers (in the form of last-mile access), content providers and customers.