Council Moving To Mandate Sexual Harassment Training For All City Workers
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A City Council committee has given preliminary approval to an ordinance requiring sexual harassment training for all city employees.
The ordinance backed by the Workforce Development Committee would explicitly prohibit sexual harassment by any city official, employee, laborer, or employment agency staffer – pretty much anyone working for the city.
Committee chair Ald. Margaret Laurino (39th) said it would mandate sexual harassment training for all of them, with more extensive courses for managers.
"There's some areas here, I think, that there's always room for improvement," she said. "I've found that, after I passed my ethics ordinance years ago, it's been very helpful in allowing our employees to understand what the law is."
Laurino said the ordinance has two levels of training.
"The online ethics training will be for every single city employee. The four-year in-person training will be for city managers," she said.
The alderman said she expects the Chicago Department of Human Resources to develop courses that deal with real-life scenarios, as well as situations that are not cut-and-dried.
"Certainly training isn't a panacea for all that's going on today, but it's certainly going to be helpful," she said.
The full City Council was expected to vote on the measure next week.
