HBA-ATS, RAR C.S.H.B. 341 76(R)BILL ANALYSIS Office of House Bill AnalysisC.S.H.B. 341 By: McCall Business & Industry 3/16/1999 Committee Report (Substituted) BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Under current law, an employer can be found liable for disclosing or withholding certain information about current or former employees. C.S.H.B. 341 provides immunity from civil liability to an employer who discloses certain information about current or former employees if the employer did not know the information to be false at the time of disclosure. RULEMAKING AUTHORITY It is the opinion of the Office of House Bill Analysis that this bill does not expressly delegate any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution. SECTION BY SECTION ANALYSIS SECTION 1. Amends Title 3, Labor Code, by adding Chapter 103, as follows: CHAPTER 103. DISCLOSURE BY EMPLOYER OF INFORMATION REGARDING CERTAIN EMPLOYEES OR FORMER EMPLOYEES Sec. 103.001. DEFINITIONS. Defines "employee," "employer," "job performance," "prospective employee," and "prospective employer." Sec. 103.002. AUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE. Authorizes an employer to disclose information about a current or former employee's job performance to a prospective employer of the current or former employee on the request of the prospective employer or the employee. Sec. 103.003. IMMUNITY FROM CIVIL LIABILITY; EMPLOYER REPRESENTATIVES. Provides that an employer who discloses information about a current or former employee under Section 103.002 is immune from civil liability for that disclosure or any damages proximately caused by that disclosure unless it is proven by the preponderance of the evidence that the information disclosed was known by that employer to be false at the time the disclosure was made. Defines "known," for purposes of this section, to mean actual knowledge based on information relating to the employee that is retained, at the time of the disclosure, in the file maintained by the employer on that employee, and includes a transcription of any information conveyed orally by the employer to the employee. Provides that this chapter applies to a managerial employee or other representative of the employer, who is authorized to provide and who provides information, in the same manner that it applies to an employer. Sec. 103.004. EMPLOYMENT REFERENCE. Provides that this chapter does not require an employer to provide an employment reference to or about a current or former employee. SECTION 2. Makes application of this Act prospective. SECTION 3. Effective date: September 1, 1999. SECTION 4. Emergency clause. COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE SECTION 1. C.S.H.B. 341 modifies the original bill by redefining "job performance" to mean the manner in which an employee performs a position of employment, including an analysis of the employee's attendance at work, attitudes, effort, knowledge, behaviors, and skills. Previously, H.B. 341 defined "job performance" as the manner in which an employee performs the duties and responsibilities of a position of employment, including an analysis of the employee's attendance at work, attitude toward the job, effort, knowledge, and skills, as exemplified through evaluations, awards, demotions, promotions, disciplinary actions, and other analogous personnel actions. C.S.H.B. 341 modifies the original bill by including the definition of "known" in the subsection that provides immunity from civil liability to an employer who discloses certain information about current or former employees if the employer had not known that the information was false at the time of disclosure. C.S.H.B. 341 modifies the original bill by deleting a provision that would have required a prospective employer to provide to any applicant, no later than the 30th day after receipt of written request by the applicant, copies of all written communications from current and former employers of the applicant that may be reasonably believed to affect the applicant's possibility of employment with the prospective employer. The deleted provision would have also required an applicant for employment to make such request no later than the 30th day after the date on which the applicant completes the application process required by the prospective employer. C.S.H.B. 341 modifies the original bill by making conforming changes.