Referred to the Committee on Education and Workforce, and in addition to the Committees on the Judiciary, House Administration, Oversight and Government Reform, and Veterans' Affairs, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
The BE HEARD in the Workplace Act is comprehensive federal legislation designed to strengthen workplace protections against discrimination and harassment. The bill expands civil rights protections to explicitly cover sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy-related conditions, and other previously underprotected categories; lowers the employer size threshold from 15 to 1 employee; and establishes clearer standards for proving harassment by requiring only that a protected characteristic be "a motivating factor" in adverse employment decisions. The bill also raises the tipped minimum wage gradually to match the federal minimum wage, extends the statute of limitations for filing discrimination complaints from 180-300 days to 4 years, prohibits employers from using nondisclosure and nondisparagement clauses to silence workers reporting harassment, and bans mandatory arbitration clauses for workplace disputes. To support implementation, the legislation creates federal grant programs for legal assistance to low-income workers and workplace discrimination prevention efforts, establishes state-based worker advocacy systems with independent governance, requires federal contractors to disclose labor violations, and mandates comprehensive research including triennial national harassment surveys and studies by the Merit Systems Protection Board, Commission on Civil Rights, and National Academies of Sciences. The bill authorizes whatever federal funding is necessary to implement these programs and applies retroactively to all pending discrimination claims.
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