Justice for Wards Cove Workers Act

Justice for Wards Cove Workers Act - Amends the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to remove a provision excluding from application of the Act any disparate impact case filed before March 1, 1975, and decided after October 30, 1983. (Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 1989, held that, in cases brought under title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the burden is on the plaintiff to prove an employer had no business necessity for a practice with discriminatory effects.) Applies the amendments made by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 to a case that is subject to the removed provision in the same way such amendments apply to any other case brought under the employment discrimination provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

[Congressional Bills 112th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4275 Introduced in House (IH)]

112th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 4275

 To amend the Civil Rights Act of 1991 with respect to the application 
                              of such Act.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 28, 2012

Mr. McDermott introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
   Committee on Education and the Workforce, and in addition to the 
Committee on the Judiciary, 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

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend the Civil Rights Act of 1991 with respect to the application 
                              of such Act.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Justice for Wards Cove Workers 
Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    The Congress finds the following:
            (1) In 1974, Frank Atonio, a United States citizen of 
        Samoan descent, and 9 other minority salmon workers filed a 
        class-action employment discrimination suit under the Civil 
        Rights Act of 1964 against Wards Cove Packing Company that 
        eventually involved 2,000 workers of Filipino, Samoan, Chinese, 
        Japanese, and Alaska native descent.
            (2) The lawsuit represented workers who charged that 
        minority employees at Wards Cove's seasonal cannery in 
        Ketchikan, Alaska, were discriminated based on their race.
            (3) Nearly all of the company's unskilled, lower-paid 
        cannery-line workers were ethnic minorities. Nearly all of the 
        higher-paid machinists, engineers, and quality-control 
        personnel were Caucasian.
            (4) The 2 groups lived in separate dormitories and ate in 
        separate mess halls. One machine was dubbed the ``Iron Chink,'' 
        and living quarters for Filipino workers were referred to as 
        the ``Flip House.''
            (5) In 1989, the Supreme Court in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. 
        Atonio ruled in the company's favor, 5-4, rolling back 
        plaintiff's rights in discrimination cases. The court ruling 
        shifted the burden of proof from employers to employees 
        alleging workplace discrimination.
            (6) Undoing the legal precedent established by that court 
        ruling became a critical impetus for the Civil Rights Act of 
        1991.
            (7) Section 402(b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 
        contained an exception clause for cases in which a complaint 
        was filed in 1975 and decided in 1983: ``Notwithstanding any 
        other provision of this Act, nothing in this Act shall apply to 
        any disparate impact case for which a complaint was filed 
        before March 1, 1975, and for which an initial decision was 
        rendered after October 30, 1983.'' Only 1 case falls within 
        this exclusion, that being the Wards Cove case.
            (8) Section 402(b) of such Act effectively blocked the 
        expansion of procedural and substantive rights provided by the 
        Civil Rights Act of 1991 from taking effect to the very people 
        whose lawsuit shed light into discrimination in the workplace.
            (9) In March 1993, President William Jefferson Clinton 
        announced his support to remove the exemption, stating that 
        ``It is contrary to all of our ideas to exclude any American 
        from the protection of our civil-rights laws''.
            (10) The Civil Rights Act of 1991 is considered to be the 
        most comprehensive civil rights legislation to pass Congress 
        since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Like the 1964 landmark Act, 
        the 1991 Act prohibits all discrimination in employment based 
        on race, gender, color, religious, or ethnic considerations.
            (11) Yet so long as Section 402(b) of such Act remains in 
        place, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 will always be marred as a 
        law that is deeply discriminatory.
            (12) Section 402(b) of such Act remains a potent symbol of 
        injustice among Asian-Americans and civil rights groups.

SEC. 3. AMENDMENTS.

    Section 402 of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (42 U.S.C. 1981 note) 
is amended--
            (1) in subsection (a) by striking ``(a) In General.--''; 
        and
            (2) by striking subsection (b).

SEC. 4. APPLICATION AND CONSTRUCTION.

    (a) Application.--For purposes of determining the application of 
the amendments made by the Civil Rights Act of 1991, such amendments 
shall apply to a case that was subject to section 402(b) of the Civil 
Rights Act of 1991 (as in effect on the day before the date of 
enactment of this Act) in the same manner and to the same extent as 
such amendments apply to any case brought under title VII of the Civil 
Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq.) that was not subject to 
section 402(b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
    (b) Construction.--Nothing in this Act shall be construed to alter, 
or shall be considered to be evidence of, congressional intent 
regarding the application of such amendments to any case that was not 
subject to section 402(b) of the Civil Rights Act of 1991.
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