WEST virginia legislature
2018 regular session
Committee Substitute
for
Senate Bill 504
By Senators Maynard and Plymale
[Originating in the Committee on the Judiciary; reported on February 23,2018]
A BILL to amend and reenact §21-5C-1 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to minimum wage and maximum hour standards for employees; excluding seasonal amusement park workers from maximum hour requirements; and defining terms.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
ARTICLE 5C. MINIMUM WAGE AND MAXIMUM HOURS STANDARDS FOR EMPLOYEES.
§21-5C-1. Definitions.
As used in this article:
(a) “Commissioner” means the Commissioner of Labor or his or her duly authorized representatives.
(b) “Wage and hour director” means the wage and hour director appointed by the Commissioner of Labor as chief of the Wage and Hour Division.
(c) “Wage” means compensation due an employee by reason of his or her employment.
(d) “Employ” means to hire or permit to work.
(e) “Employer” includes the State of West Virginia, its agencies, departments and all its political subdivisions, any individual, partnership, association, public or private corporation, or any person or group of persons acting directly or indirectly in the interest of any employer in relation to an employee; and who employs during any calendar week six or more employees as herein defined in any one separate, distinct, and permanent location or business establishment: Provided, That prior to January 1, 2015, the term “employer” does not include any individual, partnership, association, corporation, person or group of persons or similar unit if 80 percent of the persons employed by him or her are subject to any federal act relating to minimum wage, maximum hours, and overtime compensation: Provided, however, That after December 31, 2014, for the purposes of §21-5C-3 of this article, the term “employer” does not include any individual, partnership, association, corporation, person, or group of persons or similar unit if 80 percent of the persons employed by him or her are subject to any federal act relating to maximum hours and overtime compensation.
(f) “Employee” includes any
individual employed by an employer but shall not include: (1) Any individual
employed by the United States; (2) any individual engaged in the activities of
an educational, charitable, religious, fraternal, or nonprofit organization
where the employer-employee relationship does not in fact exist, or where the
services rendered to such organizations are on a voluntary basis; (3) newsboys,
shoeshine boys, golf caddies, pinboys, and pin chasers in bowling lanes; (4)
traveling salesmen and outside salesmen; (5) services performed by an
individual in the employ of his or her parent, son, daughter, or spouse; (6)
any individual employed in a bona fide professional, executive, or
administrative capacity; (7) any person whose employment is for the purpose of
on-the-job training; (8) any person having a physical or mental handicap so
severe as to prevent his or her employment or employment training in any
training or employment facility other than a nonprofit sheltered workshop; (9)
any individual employed in a boys or girls summer camp; (10) any person 62
years of age or over who receives old-age or survivors benefits from the Social
Security Administration; (11) any individual employed in agriculture as the
word agriculture is defined in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as
amended; (12) any individual employed as a firefighter by the state or agency
thereof; (13) ushers in theaters; (14) any individual employed on a part-time
basis who is a student in any recognized school or college; (15) any individual
employed by a local or interurban motorbus carrier; (16) so far as the maximum
hours and overtime compensation provisions of this article are concerned, any
salesman, parts man or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing
automobiles, trailers, trucks, farm implements, or aircraft if employed
by a nonmanufacturing establishment primarily engaged in the business of
selling such vehicles to ultimate purchasers; (17) any employee with respect to
whom the United States Department of Transportation has statutory authority to
establish qualifications and maximum hours of service; (18) any person employed
on a per diem basis by the Senate, the House of Delegates, or the Joint
Committee on Government and Finance of the Legislature of West Virginia, other
employees of the Senate or House of Delegates designated by the presiding
officer thereof, and additional employees of the Joint Committee on Government
and Finance designated by such joint committee; or (19) any person
employed as a seasonal employee of a commercial whitewater outfitter where the
seasonal employee works less than seven months in any one calendar year and, in
such case, only for the limited purpose of exempting the seasonal employee from
the maximum wage provisions of §21-5C-3 of this code; or (20) any person
employed as a seasonal employee of an amusement park where the seasonal
employee works less than seven months in any one calendar year and, in such
case, only for the limited purpose of exempting the seasonal employee from the
maximum wage and hour provisions of §21-5C-3 of this code.
(g) “Workweek” means a regularly recurring period of 168 hours in the form of seven consecutive 24-hour periods, need not coincide with the calendar week, and may begin any day of the calendar week and any hour of the day.
(h) “Hours worked” means
the hours for which an employee is employed: Provided, That in
determining hours worked for the purposes of §21-5C-2 and §21-5C-3 of this
code, there shall be excluded any time spent in changing clothes or washing at
the beginning or end of each workday, time spent in walking, riding or
traveling to and from the actual place of performance of the principal activity
or activities which such the employee is employed to perform and
activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to said the
principal activity or activities, subject to such exceptions as the
commissioner may by rules and regulations define.
(i) “Amusement park” means any person or organization which holds a permit for the operation of an amusement ride or amusement attraction under §21-10-1 et seq. of this code.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to exclude seasonal amusement park workers from the definition of “employee” for the purposes of maximum hours standards.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from a heading or the present law and underscoring indicates new language that would be added.