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Bradley Demands Strict Response to Sex Harassment

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From United Press International

Mayor Tom Bradley opened a week-long sexual harassment training program for city department heads Monday by warning that they must be vigilant in investigating complaints or the city may be vulnerable to legal action.

“Sexual harassment (reports by city employees) has reached a level that is alarming to me,” Bradley told the department chiefs and their assistants. “People feel that filing a complaint will not make a difference.

“We want all of you to understand we will not tolerate this. . . . Our policy is firm and clear--you are liable, city government is liable.”

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Attended by 300

About 300 of the city’s top administrators attended the opening day of the program.

In February, Bradley instituted a toughened policy that requires department heads to closely monitor and investigate charges of sexual harassment.

A study completed earlier this year by the city’s Commission on the Status of Women found that about 36% of the city’s female workers felt they had been victims of sexual harassment and that more than two-thirds believed it would be pointless to complain. Moreover, about 60% of the women surveyed feared they would be subject to reprisal if they complained.

“The people who work for you don’t believe you’re sensitive (to sexual harassment),” Bradley told the executives. “They don’t believe the boss really cares.”

To counter that impression, the mayor said, city managers need to make it clear to subordinates that they “are serious about carrying out” the new sexual harassment policy.

“Sexual harassment is a form of sexual discrimination,” he said. “It is prohibited. It is intolerable.”

Bradley said in an interview that despite the city’s current policy, women continue to believe “nothing will happen” to resolve their complaints and that they might be “subject to further intimidation” if they file a report.

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“They will be protected,” he said. “And they can feel confident that anybody seeking retribution will be subjected to swift and punitive action.”

Bradley said that any employee who may be “uncomfortable” about lodging a complaint with his or her department is welcome to make a report to the mayor’s office.

Specific forms of sexual harassment were spelled out for the department heads by attorney and Police Commissioner Barbara Schlei.

Under city policy, sexual harassment is defined as “unwelcomed” written, verbal, physical or visual contact with sexual overtones, she said.

Examples might be “suggestive or obscene letters”; “slurs, jokes or epithets”; “assault, touching or blocking someone’s path”; “leering, gestures and display of suggestive objects or pictures, cartoons or posters.”

In one of the more highly publicized cases this year, a veteran fireman was suspended for five months without pay after being found guilty of slapping the buttocks and trying to touch the breasts of a woman firefighter while on duty at a Westchester fire station.

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