To amend sections 121.084 and 4111.17 of the Revised Code to increase the civil penalties imposed on employers that discriminate in the payment of wages on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, or ancestry.

Section 1. That sections 121.084 and 4111.17 of the Revised Code be amended to read as follows:

Sec. 121.084.  (A) All moneys collected under division (D)(2) of section 4111.17 and sections 3783.05, 3791.07, 4104.07, 4104.18, 4104.44, 4105.17, 4105.20, 4169.03, 4171.04, and 5104.051 of the Revised Code, and any other moneys collected by the division of industrial compliance shall be paid into the state treasury to the credit of the industrial compliance operating fund, which is hereby created. The department of commerce shall use the moneys in the fund for paying the operating expenses of the division and the administrative assessment described in division (B) of this section.

(B) The director of commerce, with the approval of the director of budget and management, shall prescribe procedures for assessing the industrial compliance operating fund a proportionate share of the administrative costs of the department of commerce. The assessment shall be made in accordance with those procedures and be paid from the industrial compliance operating fund to the division of administration fund created in section 121.08 of the Revised Code.

Sec. 4111.17.  (A) No employer, including the state and its political subdivisions thereof, shall discriminate in the payment of wages on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, or ancestry by paying wages to any employee at a rate less than the rate at which the employer pays wages to another employee for equal work on jobs the performance of which requires equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which that are performed under similar conditions.

(B) Nothing in this section prohibits an employer from paying wages to one employee at a rate different from that at which the employer pays another employee for the performance of equal work under similar conditions on jobs requiring equal skill, effort, and responsibility, when the payment is made pursuant to any of the following:

(1) A seniority system;

(2) A merit system;

(3) A system which that measures earnings by the quantity or quality of production;

(4) A wage rate differential determined by any factor other than race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, or ancestry.

(C) No employer shall reduce the wage rate of any employee in order to comply with this section.

(D) The director of commerce shall carry out, administer, and enforce this section. Any

(1) Any employee discriminated against in violation of this section may sue in any court of competent jurisdiction to recover two times the amount of the difference between the wages actually received and the wages received by a person performing equal work for the employer, from the date of the commencement of the violation, and for costs, including attorney fees. The director may take an assignment of any such wage claim in trust for such that employee and sue in the employee's behalf. In any civil action under division (D)(1) of this section, two or more employees of the same employer may join as co-plaintiffs in one action. The director may sue in one action for claims assigned to the director by two or more employees of the same employer. No

(2) Any employer who violates any provision of this section or any applicable rule adopted by the director under section 4111.05 of the Revised Code to carry out the purposes of this section shall pay a civil penalty of two thousand five hundred dollars to the director for each violation for each employee affected. At the request of the director, if an employer has not paid this civil penalty within a reasonable time after its assessment, the attorney general, or under the attorney general's direction the prosecuting attorney of the county where a violation occurred, shall institute an action to recover the amount of the penalty. Any money collected under division (D)(2) of this section shall be paid into the state treasury to the credit of the industrial compliance operating fund created under section 121.084 of the Revised Code.

(3) No agreement to work for a discriminatory wage constitutes a defense for any civil or criminal action to enforce this section. No

(4) No employer shall discriminate against any employee because such employee makes a complaint or institutes, or testifies in, any proceeding under this section. An employer who discriminates against an employee in violation of this prohibition is liable to the employee for the value of any wages or benefits lost by the employee as a result of the employer's actions.

(E) Any action arising under this section shall be initiated within one year after the date of violation.

Section 2. That existing sections 121.084 and 4111.17 of the Revised Code are hereby repealed.