Council wants bill that reveals city workers disciplined for sexual harassment
There were as many as five complaints of sexual harassment...
The City Council is weighing legislation that would require that the discipline meted out to city workers in sexual-harassment cases be made public — information Mayor de Blasio’s office is refusing to provide.
Councilmember Mark Levine (D-Manhattan) said he submitted a request earlier this year for a bill to be drafted that would shine a light on how agencies handle substantiated complaints of harassment.
City officials revealed for the first time Monday that substantiated claims of sexual harassment were made against as many as five employees in the mayor’s office between 2014 and 2017, but they’ve refused to say how the staffers were punished.
Ritchie Torres, chair of the council Oversight and Investigations Committee, slammed the secrecy as hypocritical for an administration that touts itself as transparent.
“Without details, we have no means to evaluate how seriously these substantiated allegations were taken. How can you claim to be for transparency if you don’t provide the public this information?” Torres (D- Bronx) asked.
In response to questions, officials have said they’re compiling a summary of how guilty workers were disciplined across the board, but not with a breakdown by agency.