SB 412 — Establishing Katherine Johnson Fair Pay Act of 2019

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Red = new code to be enacted WEST virginia legislature regular session IntroducedCommittee Substitute for Senate Bill 412 By Senators Beach and HamiltonHamilton, [Introducedoriginal Januarysponsors 24,[Originating 2019;in the Committee on the Judiciary;

ReferredReported toon theFebruary Committee23, on2019] the  Judiciary]   A BILL to amend and reenact §5-11-3 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,amended; by adding thereto a new section, designated §5-11-9b, relating to the Katherine Johnson Fair Pay Act of 2019;

and to amend said code by adding thereto a new section, designated §5-11-9b, all relating to the Katherine Johnson Fair Pay Act of 2019;

makingamending itdefinition unlawful for an employer to require, as a condition of employment,“unlawful thatdiscriminatory anpractices”; employee refrain from disclosing information about his or her wages, benefits, or other compensation or sharing information about another employee’s wages, benefits, or other compensation;

making it unlawful for an employer to requirerequire, as a waivercondition of employees’employment, rightsthat toan discloseemployee informationrefrain aboutfrom hisdisclosing or her wages, benefits, or other compensation or to share information about anothertheir employee’s wages, benefits, or other compensation;

and limitingmaking employers’it inquiryunlawful intofor applicants’an wageemployer andto salaryrequire history.a waiver of employee’s rights to disclose information about their wages, benefits, or other compensation.

ARTICLEPREAMBLE: 11.

HUMANBorn RIGHTSin ACT.White Sulphur Springs, Katherine Coleman Johnson’s brilliance with numbers landed her on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College - at age 13.

§5-11-9b.  The Katherine Johnson Fair Pay Act of 2019.

(a) This section may be cited as the “Katherine Johnson Fair Pay Act of 2019”, in honor of Katherine Coleman Johnson, an African American mathematician born and educated in West Virginia and later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian honor.

Born in White Sulphur Springs, Ms.

Johnson's brilliance with numbers landed her on the campus of historically black West Virginia State College - at age 13.

Although her complex analyses were used in America'sAmerica’s first human space flight and landing on the moon, she and the black female crew with whom she worked were degraded by having to use a segregated bathroom a long distance from their worksite.

ARTICLE 11.

HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION.

§5-11-3.

Definitions.

When used in this article:

(a) The term “person” means one or more individuals, partnerships, associations, organizations, corporations, labor organizations, cooperatives, legal representatives, trustees, trustees in bankruptcy, receivers, and other organized groups of persons;

(b) The term “commission” means the West Virginia Human Rights Commission;

(c) The term “director” means the executive director of the commission;

(d) The term “employer” means the state, or any political subdivision thereof, and any person employing 12 or more persons within the state for 20 or more calendar weeks in the calendar year in which the act of discrimination allegedly took place or the preceding calendar year:

Provided, That such terms shall not be taken, understood, or construed to include a private club;

(e) The term “employee” shall not include any individual employed by his or her parents, spouse, or child;

(f) The term “labor organization” includes any organization which exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of collective bargaining or of dealing with employers concerning grievances, terms, or conditions of employment or for other mutual aid or protection in relation to employment;

(g) The term “employment agency” includes any person undertaking, with or without compensation, to procure, recruit, refer, or place employees.

A newspaper engaged in the activity of advertising in the normal course of its business shall not be deemed to be an employment agency;

(h) The term “discriminate” or “discrimination” means to exclude from, or fail or refuse to extend to, a person equal opportunities because of race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, sex, age, blindness, disability, or familial status and includes to separate or segregate;

(i) The term “unlawful discriminatory practices” includes only those practices specified in §5-11-9 and §5-11-9b of this code;

(j) The term “place of public accommodations” means any establishment or person, as defined herein, including the state, or any political or civil subdivision thereof, which offers its services, goods, facilities, or accommodations to the general public, but shall not include any accommodations which are in their nature private.

To the extent that any penitentiary, correctional facility, detention center, regional jail, or county jail is a place of public accommodation, the rights, remedies, and requirements provided by this article for any violation of §5-11-9(6) of this code shall not apply to any person other than:

(1) Any person employed at a penitentiary, correctional facility, detention center, regional jail, or county jail;

(2) any person employed by a law-enforcement agency;

or (3) any person visiting any such employee or visiting any person detained in custody at such facility;

(k) The term “age” means the age of 40 or above;

(l) For the purpose of this article, a person shall be considered to be blind only if his central visual acuity does not exceed 20/200 in the better eye with correcting lenses, or if his visual acuity is greater than 20/200 but is occasioned by a limitation in the fields of vision such that the widest diameter of the visual field subtends an angle no greater than 20 degrees;

and (m) The term “disability” means:

(1) A mental or physical impairment which substantially limits one or more of such person’s major life activities.

The term “major life activities” includes functions such as caring for one’s self, performing manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, and working;