Workers' Protections in the USA

Whistleblower Protection Act 

Article 1 of chapter 6C of the West Virginia Code (West Virginia Code 6C-1-1) protects the employees who report any illegal or unethical activities by their employers from facing retaliation consequences such as firing or demotion. The West Virginia whistleblower statute states that an employer “ Cannot discharge, threaten, or otherwise discriminate or retaliate if employee or representative reports or testifies as to a violation of state or federal statute or regulation, or ordinance of political subdivision or regulation or code of conduct or ethics designed to protect public from employer waste” (Cordis & Lambert, 2017). When an employee makes a good faith to report any wrongdoing or illegal activity by the employer, the law prohibits the employer from discrimination and retaliation against such an employer. The retaliation that the employers are prohibited from engaging include termination change in the work hours, changes in the job location, and change in terms of compensation as well as benefits and privileges. The West Virginia Courts have in many rulings protected the workers who have been terminated or suffered adverse employment consequences for either reporting or refusing to participate in any illegal activity by the employer. At the same time, the federal Occupation Health and Safety Act prohibit any form of employment retaliation by the employer against the employees who report any violation of such Act. 

Equal Pay Act 

The West Virginia Equal Pay Act makes it illegal for the employers to discriminate in any way between the gender and race in the payment of the wages for similar work requiring comparable skills. The employers are required to pay equal wages for employees performing similar job responsibilities requiring similar skills irrespective of the gender of their gender. The West Virginia Code Sec. 21-5B-1 prohibits employers from any discrimination in the payment of wages. Under this Act, it is illegal to get into a contract where the employees agree to take a pay rate that is lower than the amount paid to another gender for comparable work (Kelsay, 2015). It also protects the employees who have reported any act of pay discrimination from facing any retaliation consequences from the employers. The Equal Pay Act applies to all the private employers in the within the state that is not covered by the federal laws. This law only allows differences in the pay for comparable work if based on other factors such as seniority and merit system, but not on sex. The major purpose of this act is to prevent the employers from discriminating employees on pay based on their gender to achieve gender equality in pay and employment. The West Virginia Commissioner of labor is the body responsible for enforcement of the law and taking a legal action against an employee violating such laws. 

FLSA - Wage & Hour Laws 

Under the West Virginia overtime law, any employer with six or more employees is required to pay them overtime in the amount of one and a half times their regular pay rate for hours worked more than the recommended forty hours a week. In the WV Code Sec. 21-5C-3(a), employees working for more than 40 hours a week must be paid overtime based on the set criteria under the Act ( Cohen, 2018 ). Not all jobs are eligible to overtime, however. The executive, administrative, and professional employees are exempt from this law. The other category of the workers exempted from this Act includes those working in the farms, ranches, agricultural businesses, and outside salespersons. 

The Fair Labor Standards Act is the federal law that establishes the minimum wage, overtime pay, and child labor standards. All the employees that are in the position determined to be covered under the mandatory overtime provisions are covered under the FLSA. The human resource agency determines the overtime eligibility status of all the positions and is usually based on the criteria that have been established by the US Department of Labor. Under the FLSA, all the hours worked more than 40 hours each week is eligible for overtime of one and a half times the regular pay of the employ. The paid leaves are not counted as the time worked for the non-represented employees. 

Equal Employment Opportunity Laws 

The West Virginia Human Rights Act prohibits the employer from discriminating against an employee based on race, sex, disability, religion, color, or nationality. The law aims at providing equal employment opportunity for all the categories of people without subjecting them to any form of discrimination. To comply with the act, companies are required to have in diversity in their workforce to reflect that they are not discriminative in employment and hiring. Once discriminated based on any of the elements under the law, an individual can file a claim with the West Virginia Human Rights Commission or with the federal administrative agency known as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. West Virginia aims at having an equal opportunity state where the legible employees are not discriminated on various factors that do not merit for the job. At the same time, it ensures an organization does not have all its employees from one race, religion or color, but to have a diversified workplace environment where employees thrive on sharing new values and cultures. The major mission for the West Virginia Equal Employment Opportunity office is to assist the state agencies in investigating and mitigating any unlawful workplace harassment or discrimination that is based on any of the protected class. 

References 

Cordis, A. S., & Lambert, E. M. (2017, December). Whistleblower laws and corporate fraud: Evidence from the United States. In  Accounting Forum  (Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 289-299). Taylor & Francis. 

Kelsay, M. (2015). The adverse economic impact from repeal of the prevailing wage law in West Virginia.  Prepared for the West Virginia Affliated Construction Trades Foundation . 

Cohen, J. L. (2018). Democratizing the FLSA Injunction: Toward a Systemic Remedy for Wage Theft.  Yale Law Journal ,  127 (3).