HB 944 Virginia House of Delegates · 2026 Regular Session

Workplace violence; policy required for certain employers, civil penalty, delayed effective date.

Summary

Workplace violence policy required for certain employers; civil penalty. Requires any employer of 100 or more employees to develop, implement, and maintain a workplace violence policy no later than January 1, 2027. The bill includes requirements for such a policy, such as procedures and methods for employee reporting of incidents and post-incident investigations. Employers subject to the bill are required to maintain documentation of workplace violence incidents for not less than five years. An employer that violates the provisions of the bill shall be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $1,000 per violation. The bill prohibits retaliation from an employer on the basis of reporting a workplace violence incident and provides that any employee who makes a report of workplace violence shall be immune from civil liability. The bill has a delayed effective date of January 1, 2027.

Issues: ✓ Labor & Employment

Bill status passed 3 of 5 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2026

Committee Review

Mar 2026

House of Delegates Passage

Feb 2026

Senate Passage

Governor

Introduced Jan 13, 2026 Last action Mar 9, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 2 comparisons

What changed between versions

Labor and Commerce Substitute → Commerce and Labor Substitute · 4 edits

MODERATE

The bill was transferred from the House to the Senate committee, changing the committee name from 'Labor and Commerce' to 'Commerce and Labor' and updating the document header to reflect Senate consideration. The substantive policy content regarding workplace violence policies remains largely the same, though some minor wording adjustments were made to the definition of workplace violence and retaliatory protections.

Scope change

The bill's scope and applicability remain unchanged; it still applies to employers with 100 or more employees and covers workplace violence prevention policies.

TECHNICAL

The committee name was changed from 'House Committee on Labor and Commerce' to 'Senate Committee on Commerce and Labor' to reflect the bill's transfer to Senate consideration.

DEFINITION

The definition of workplace violence was slightly modified to remove 'clinically diagnosed' before 'psychological trauma' and removed 'suicidal ideation or threats' from the included examples of workplace violence, while keeping them in the excluded examples.

REQUIREMENT

The retaliatory protections section was updated to explicitly include reporting workplace violence incidents, threats, or concerns to various agencies as a protected activity, and to reference rights under the new section.

MODIFIED

Formatting and line break changes were made throughout the document to accommodate Senate markup conventions, including adding page numbers and draft headers.

Introduced → Labor and Commerce Substitute · 4 edits

MODERATE

The bill was amended by the Labor and Commerce Committee to narrow the definition of workplace violence, remove specific examples of prohibited behaviors, and add clarifying language about what does not constitute workplace violence. The committee also added provisions allowing training to be integrated into existing safety programs and modified the scope of what must be included in workplace violence policies. These changes aim to provide clearer guidance to employers while maintaining the core requirement for workplace violence prevention policies.

Scope change

The bill's scope was narrowed by removing broad examples of workplace violence (such as intimidation, bullying, verbal abuse, refusal to obey policies, and sabotage) and replacing them with a more specific definition focused on physical force, weapons use, and suicidal threats. The definition now explicitly excludes general workplace conflicts, performance management discussions, and harassment complaints handled through separate processes.

DEFINITION

The definition of workplace violence was significantly narrowed from a broad list including intimidation, bullying, verbal abuse, harassment, refusal to obey policies, and sabotage to a more specific definition focusing on physical force causing injury or trauma, use of weapons, and suicidal threats.

New language was added to clarify that workplace violence does not include general workplace conflicts, disagreements, performance management discussions, or harassment complaints handled through separate processes.

REQUIREMENT

The requirements for workplace violence policies were modified by removing specific examples of what must be included and adding language allowing employer training to be integrated into existing safety training programs.

The policy requirements were modified by removing the requirement for policies to address intimidation, bullying, verbal abuse, refusal to obey workplace policies, sabotaging equipment, stealing, physical fights, destruction of property, displays of extreme rage, and use of weapons to harm others.

Floor votes · House of Delegates Feb 17, 2026

How they voted

51–34

Passed · 2 other

Total votes 87

Feb 17, 2026

D Democratic52

51 Yea 1

98% Yea

R Republican35

34 Nay 1

97% Nay

Vote distribution

All Yea All Nay Mixed No data

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Mar 9, 2026

Upper · Passed

Reported from Commerce and Labor with substitute and rereferred to Finance and Appropriations (10-Y 4-N)

upper

Mar 9, 2026

Upper · Passed

Senate committee offered

upper

Feb 18, 2026

Committee

Referred to Committee on Commerce and Labor

upper

Feb 17, 2026

Lower · Passed

Read third time and passed House (62-Y 35-N 0-A)

lower

Feb 12, 2026

Lower · Passed

Reported from Labor and Commerce with substitute (13-Y 7-N)

lower

Feb 12, 2026

Lower · Passed

House subcommittee offered

lower

Jan 22, 2026

Committee

Assigned HCL sub: Subcommittee #2

lower

Jan 13, 2026

Committee

Referred to Committee on Labor and Commerce

lower

1 primary · 5 co-sponsors