73R7759 PB-F
          By Davila                                             H.B. No. 2579
          Substitute the following for H.B. No. 2579:
          By Danburg                                        C.S.H.B. No. 2579
                                 A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-1                                AN ACT
    1-2  relating to restrictions on certain employer-imposed workplace
    1-3  language requirements and to employee notification of those
    1-4  restrictions and other equal employment opportunity requirements by
    1-5  the Commission on Human Rights.
    1-6        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
    1-7        SECTION 1.  Section 3.02, Commission on Human Rights Act
    1-8  (Article 5221k, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended by
    1-9  adding Subsection (e) to read as follows:
   1-10        (e)  The commission shall prepare, in poster format, a notice
   1-11  relating to the equal employment opportunity requirements
   1-12  established under this Act.  The poster must include a statement
   1-13  that a language requirement by an employer is a term or condition
   1-14  of employment that may violate Section 5.01(b) of this Act.
   1-15        SECTION 2.  Section 5.01, Commission on Human Rights Act
   1-16  (Article 5221k, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to read
   1-17  as follows:
   1-18        Sec. 5.01.  Employers.  (a)  It is an unlawful employment
   1-19  practice for an employer:
   1-20              (1)  to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge an
   1-21  individual or otherwise to discriminate against an individual with
   1-22  respect to compensation or the terms, conditions, or privileges of
   1-23  employment because of race, color, disability, religion, sex,
    2-1  national origin, or age; or
    2-2              (2)  to limit, segregate, or classify an employee or
    2-3  applicant for employment in a way that would deprive or tend to
    2-4  deprive an individual of employment opportunities or otherwise
    2-5  adversely affect the status of an employee because of race, color,
    2-6  disability, religion, sex, national origin, or age.
    2-7        (b)  It is an unlawful employment practice for an employer to
    2-8  impose language requirements unless the employer can demonstrate
    2-9  that the language requirements:
   2-10              (1)  are directly related to the safe and efficient
   2-11  performance of the job; or
   2-12              (2)  are consistent with business necessity.
   2-13        (c)  Each employer shall post the notice prepared by the
   2-14  commission under Section 3.02(e) of this Act in a conspicuous
   2-15  location accessible to all employees in the employer's workplace.
   2-16        SECTION 3.  This Act takes effect September 1, 1993, and
   2-17  applies only to a complaint filed with the Commission on Human
   2-18  Rights on or after that date.  A complaint filed before that date
   2-19  is governed by the law in effect on the date that the complaint was
   2-20  filed, and the former law is continued in effect for that purpose.
   2-21        SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
   2-22  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   2-23  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   2-24  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   2-25  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.