(GayWebSource.com – Gay Media & Press Network) – Posted by Michael Lamb – Echelon Magazine

Approximately 95 percent of workforce is not covered by a local ordinance prohibiting sexual orientation and gender identity

More than 25,000 LGBT workers in West Virginia continue to face widespread and persistent employment discrimination absent state or federal legal protections, according to a new report co-authored by Amira Hasenbush, Jim Kepner Law and Policy Fellow; Sarah Liebowitz, Research Associate; and Christy Mallory, former Reid Rasmussen Fellow of Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute. Charleston, Morgantown, Lewisburg, Harpers Ferry, and Buckhannon have local ordinances that prohibit employment discrimination against LGBT people, but they do not provide as much protection for LGBT people as the state’s law that prohibits other types of discrimination.

“West Virginia coal miners, teachers, and community workers have all been affected by the persistent employment discrimination in the state,” said Hasenbush. “A state-wide law prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people would provide uniform and consistent protections for all workers in all sectors, and at marginal cost to the government.”

Key findings from the report include:

• Media reports and lawsuits document that a number of West Virginia employees have faced discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity; these include reports from a school teacher and a mine worker.
• Census data show that in West Virginia, the median income of men in same-sex couples is 10% lower than men in different sex marriages. Disparities in wages are also a traditional way that discrimination has been measured.
• Approximately 95 percent of West Virginia’s workforce is not covered by a local ordinance prohibiting employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
• 21 of the state’s 25 largest employers have internal corporate policies prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination.
• A statewide non-discrimination law would result in 12 additional complaints being filed with the West Virginia Human Rights Commission each year.
• The cost of enforcing the additional complaints would be negligible. At most, it would cost the state approximately $53,750 annually; only 2.9 percent of the West Virginia Human Rights Commission’s annual budget.

Findings from the West Virginia report are consistent with national data. A 2013 Pew Research Center survey found that 21 percent of LGBT respondents had been treated unfairly by an employer in hiring, pay, or promotions. In 2010, 78 percent of respondents to the largest survey of transgender people reported having experienced harassment or mistreatment at work.

The full report can be found here http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/WestVirginiaNDReport-Dec-2013.pdf.

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