State Dems celebrate as sexual assualt bill advances

As U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty’s handling of alleged abuse in her office has again pushed sexual harassment into the national spotlight, the Connecticut legislature is eyeing reforms to improve sexual harassment training and increase reporting.

A top priority for state Senate Democrats, the Time’s Up Act was approved by the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee late Tuesday. It would enforce some of the most stringent training requirements in the nation.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy applauded the vote Wednesday.

“I’ve heard some pushback because the law we’ve submitted would require the training of firms down to the size of three individuals,” Malloy said. “Someone said, ‘Why do you want to do that?’ Because sexual assault occurs within two individuals, so if you have three, you better be talking about it.”

Connecticut’s sexual harassment laws have not been updated since the early 1990s, according to the Connecticut Women’s Education and Legal Fund.

The new bill would require companies with three or more staff to provide sexual harassment training and education to all their employees. The law now says employers with 50 or more staff have to provide training just to their supervisors.

Connecticut is one of three states that requires sexual harassment training of private sector companies, according to the National Women’s Law Center. In California, companies with 50 or more staff must do the training and in Maine, companies with 15 or more.

The bill, which will be forwarded to the state Senate for a vote, would require training in strategies like bystander intervention. It says companies with three or more staff must email sexual harassment information and remedies to employees or post it on company websites, in addition to posting it at work.

“It is a strong step,” said Kate Farrar, executive director of CWEALF, in an interview Monday. “The training requirements and the changes to that in the bill are about how we really need to modernize (from) where we’ve been.”

Sixteen Republicans voted against the bill, while a coalition of 25 from both parties supported it. Several Republicans voiced concerns about expanding training requirements to “mom and pop shops.”

The Connecticut Business and Industry Association argued in testimony the new requirements would be expensive and burdensome for local companies.

“Basically, it is blanketing the entire population of Connecticut. I think the formal training sessions are more easily managed by larger companies,” said Mark Soycher, CBIA human resources counsel who conducts trainings. “For a small company, it is telling them they have to shut down for a period of time to do the training.”

While it objects to the “mandate,” the CBIA supports teaching bystander intervention and spreading sexual harassment training to nonsupervisory employees, Soycher said.

The bill allows businesses to suspend and withhold pay from any employee — including executives — during an investigation. It also increases the time for an employee to file a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities from 180 days to three years.

The CHRO received 158 sexual harassment complaints in 2017, out of 2,490 overall new complaints.

Emilie Munson / Hearst Connecticut Media Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, center, led the charge advocating for the passage of the Time’s Up Act, reforming Connecticut’s sexual harassment laws, in February. He was joined by, from left, Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford,...