New bill protects more workers from harassment and bias, including LGBTQ+ people and contractors.
Workers would gain stronger protections as this bill requires most employers to adopt anti-discrimination policies and training, and it would explicitly make discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity illegal. It would also extend federal job protections to independent contractors and interns, and ban forced arbitration for work disputes. Additionally, it would gradually raise the minimum cash wage for tipped employees until it matches the federal minimum wage.
Today, federal anti-discrimination laws generally apply to employers with 15 or more employees, and protections for LGBTQ+ individuals are often based on court interpretations rather than explicit law. Independent contractors, interns, and volunteers typically lack these federal protections, and many employment contracts include forced arbitration clauses or non-disclosure agreements that limit workers' ability to pursue claims. Tipped employees can be paid a lower cash wage, and employers can sometimes take a portion of tips. After this bill, federal anti-discrimination laws would cover employers with one or more employees, explicitly include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes, and extend protections to independent contractors and other non-traditional workers. Forced arbitration and restrictive non-disclosure agreements for harassment or discrimination claims would be banned, and the time limit for filing complaints would be significantly extended. Tipped employees would see their cash wage rise to the full federal minimum wage and would be guaranteed to keep all their tips.
HR 7583 · 119th Congress · February 13, 2026 · AI Summary by gemini-2.5-flash · 9/10
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7 filings mentioned this bill
Amounts reflect total quarterly lobbying spend reported to the Senate, not bill-specific spending. Source: Senate LDA filings.