Stewart-Cousins’ Combats Workplace Sexual Harassment

YONKERS – New York State Senator and Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers), together with her Senate Democratic colleagues, introduced a series of bills to combat sexual harassment in the workplace.

As the first woman leader of a New York State Legislative Conference, Andrea Stewart-Cousins has made combating inequality and injustice a top priority. The legislative package includes a number of bills aimed at reducing workplace sexual harassment and holding perpetrators of such harassment responsible for their actions. Under Senator Stewart-Cousins’ leadership, the Senate Democrats have led the charge to build a stronger, fairer state.

“We must have zero tolerance for sexual harassment,” said Senator Stewart-Cousins. “No New Yorker should be subjected to harassment at their workplace. This Senate Democratic bill package will send a strong message that this type of behavior will not be tolerated. Our proposals will combat sexual harassment in public and private sector offices, ensure public officials cannot use taxpayer money for settlements, protect New Yorkers from retaliatory actions, and shine a light on workplace harassment allegations and settlements. If the current Senate Republican Majority does not act on this legislation, I will ensure it is passed when the Senate Democrats come to power later this session.”

The anti-sexual harassment legislative package includes the following bills that will:

● Crack Down on Sexual Harassment in the Public Sector: This bill, S.7195 (sponsored by Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins) would require the State Legislature and all Executive agencies to adopt a strong managerial policy against harassment, which would outline clear rights for employees facing harassment, including interns and fellows, and make provisions to hold supervisors accountable for bad conduct they knew of and allowed to continue. It would also require that Legislative investigations be concluded within 60 days and mandate investigators to recommend action within 30 days of such conclusions. These findings would then be posted online with personal information redacted. Additionally, it would require public employees to complete 2 hours of annual training on workplace harassment and an additional hour of training for supervisors, with similar policies applied to large state contractors;

● Make State Legislators Personally Liable for Settlements of Claims of Sexual Harassment made Against Them: This bill, S.7196 (sponsored by Senator Brad Hoylman) would make state legislators personally financially liable for claims of sexual harassment made against them, ensuring that taxpayer money would not be used to resolve findings of wrongdoing by public servants;

● Hold Public Officers to a Higher Standard: This bill, S.6875 (sponsored by Senator Tim Kennedy), would add provisions to the Public Officers Law explicitly prohibiting acts of sexual harassment and would recognize sexual harassment as a breach of the ethical Code of Conduct, subjecting any offending public officer to a civil penalty of up to $10,000;

● Strengthen Anti-Retaliation Provisions: This bill, S.7192 (sponsored by Senator Roxanne Persaud), would provide job security to employees who report incidents of sexual harassment to the State Division of Human Rights and safeguard them from retaliation;

● Crack Down on Sexual Harassment in the Private Sector: This bill, S.7193 (sponsored by Senator Liz Krueger), would codify sexual harassment as an unlawful discriminatory practice and ensure that employee of small businesses could bring a claim of sexual harassment/gender discrimination against their employer, in addition to lowering the standard for a sexual harassment case to make one incident of harassment severe enough to sue for damages;

● Provide Fairness in Arbitrations and Limit Confidentiality: This bill, S.6382-A (sponsored by Senator Brad Hoylman), would void most confidentiality agreements for settlements of sexual harassment cases and bar contracts from denying workers’ procedural rights in arbitration agreements as a condition for employment.

The Senate Democratic legislative package serves as a response to the increasing number of allegations regarding sexual misconduct and assault in both the private sector and public arena. Recent revelations have proven such transgressions systemic and have demonstrated the need for strong and lasting solutions from state government. The bills included in the proposal address this reality and would help ensure the fair and equal treatment of employees in both the public and private sectors.