Advocates push for reporting requirement in workplace sexual harassment bill

Advocates for a bill to prohibit provisions or policies that waive legal remedies of sexual harassment claims in the workplace asked the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday to keep a reporting requirement that was gutted from the House version.

“The reporting requirements in my mind are the heart of the bill,” Lisae C. Jordan, executive director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said in an interview after the hearing.

The House Economic Matters Committee passed an amended version of House Bill 1596 earlier this week that eliminated a requirement that employers with 50 or more workers submit annual reports to the state Commission on Civil Rights with the number of settlements the employer had made on behalf of an employee for sexual harassment claims, whether that settlement had a non-disclosure provision and whether the alleged perpetrator was a repeat offender.

Jordan said the House committee’s decision to take away that requirement was “very disappointing.”

The Maryland Chamber of Commerce had some concerns about the impact the reporting requirement would have on businesses but worked with Jordan to reach a compromise, Lawrence A. Richardson Jr., the chamber’s vice president of government affairs, told the Senate committee. That did not include getting rid of the reporting requirement altogether, he added.

“It wasn’t us,” he said.

The compromises, which Jordan and Richardson hope will be reflected in Senate Bill 1010, include only having the aggregate number of settlements in Maryland available online. Employers would still track individual employers who have repeatedly made settlements with non-disclosure provisions with the same perpetrator. The Commission on Civil Rights would have that information but it would not be available online, Jordan said.

The goal is to make sure employers that made a single settlement are not viewed as bad actors while also giving a sense of how many of these cases happen in the state, supporters said.

This will shed light on “how many Harvey Weinsteins we have in Maryland,” Jordan said.

SB 1010, sponsored by Sen. Craig J. Zucker, D-Montgomery, also would prohibit an employer from taking adverse actions against an employee who refuses to enter an agreement that contains a waiver against future remedies for a sexual harassment claim.

Among other proposed amendments advocates seek in the Senate bill, which are in the latest House version, are ensuring the state law does not preempt the Federal Arbitration Act. The amended House bill also took out an exemption for workers under collective bargaining agreements, at the request of union workers.

“We are happy that they wanted to be included and that our unions are also fighting against sexual harassment,” Jordan said.

A similar bill, HB 1239, which would have targeted contractual waivers but did not include a reporting requirement, was given an unfavorable report in committee and withdrawn. Its sponsor, Del. C.T. Wilson, D-Charles, has since signed on as a sponsor for HB 1596.