They're Here!

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They’re Here!

On January 8th, the legislature convened for the 83rd legislative session. Did you know that there are 31 Senators and 150 State Representatives in the Texas Legislature? Your Government Affairs/Advocacy team is on the ground and tracking legislation that could have an impact on the way you do business. The Texas State Council has a leadership team comprised of two great legal minds, Lon Williams and Kristin Bauer and me – I’m what Lon likes to call "boots on the ground" in Austin. We use several resources to get information about pending legislation and then we push information out to any chapter who wants to be on our ‘group’ list.

I would like to share with you how you can be kept up to date on legislation of interest to you.
First, go to http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/. This is a link to the Texas legislature on line. You can track bills by bill number or by key words. Try a few, it is pretty fun. You can also track committees, read the bills, find where they are in the process and even see who testified on, for or against legislation in committee.

Next, I’d like you to look in the upper left hand corner of the site and go to "My TLO". In my TLO you can: ·

Track Legislation With Bill Lists 
Receive Bill and Meeting Alerts 
Subscribe to RSS Feeds 
View Content on Mobile Device
Saved Bill, Text, Amendment Searches

I like to enter the bill number and a brief message of why I am tracking it so that when I get the alert, I’m tuned into why I was tracking it in the first place. For example, today I received an alert on some bills I am watching and here’s the alert with the comments I set up in my alert in bold.

Texas Legislature Online Bill Alert
83(R) HB 298
Relating to prohibiting employer retaliation against employees who seek recovery of unpaid wages and procedures in wage claim hearings conducted by the Texas Workforce Commission; providing administrative penalties.
2/11/2013 H Referred to Business & Industry
Retaliation bill - too broad
View all actions
83(R) HB 372
Relating to establishing the Workplace Fraud Prevention Act; providing penalties.
2/11/2013 H Referred to Business & Industry
worker misclassification bill - setting bad precedent A typical legislative session in Texas generates about 5,000 bills.

This session the leadership has said their main focus areas will be:
Budget / Finance 
Education
Transportation
Water
Energy

But, don’t be lulled into thinking with these five focus areas that HR is out of the woods, there are plenty of bills already filed and more coming that could relate directly to how you do your job, report or comply. If you would like to stay up with current pending legislation in Texas, email me and I’ll put you on our group list.

The Texas Legislative Round Up is the premier HR Legislative Conference in the state of Texas, presented by the Society for Human Resource Management – Texas State Council (SHRM-TSC) in partnership with the Texas Industry Liaison Groups (ILG’s) and the Texas Association of Business (TAB) and will be held on Thursday, April 4, 2013, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Austin, Texas.

Highlights include: State and Federal Legislative and Governmental Affairs Updates * Trends in EEOC and OFCCP Regulatory and Technical Compliance * Hot Topics, Including Healthcare, Retaliation, ADA, FMLA * Meetings with Legislators * Networking with Leaders in the Human Resources and Related Professions.

Our distinguished presenters from throughout the country and state include: ·
Mike Aitken – SHRM, Vice President Government Affairs ·
Tommy Simmons - Legal Counsel to Chairman Pauken, Texas Workforce Commission
Devon Herrick - Senior Fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis
Mickey Silberman - Jackson Lewis, Senior Counsel for National ILG
Shafeeqa Giarratani - Fulbright & Jaworski,

Counsel for San Antonio and Austin ILG’s You won’t want to miss this event!

Register at www.texashrlaw.org

And if you attend and want to meet with your legislator, I’ll personally accompany you if you are a first time visitor to the capitol. See you in Austin, April 4th, 2013. Pamela Bratton, Co-Director Governmental Affairs/Advocacy 2013 pbratton@meador.com