This commentary is by Jill Ashton, regional administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, covering New England, New York, New Jersey.
The U.S. has often been a leader in gender-based discrimination laws, such as Title VII and Title IX. In fact, many countries have modeled their legislation on how the U.S. legal system addresses sexual harassment.
To prevent and address gender-based violence in the workplace, the International Labor Organization presented a new international model in 2019 in its Convention on Violence and Harassment, also known as Convention 190.
Shaped by the voices of working women around the world — in concert with unions, employer representatives and governments — Convention 190 offers a groundbreaking approach. The convention is broader than sexual harassment and, instead, addresses gender-based violence and harassment. It goes beyond the workplace and covers anywhere workers are paid – in break rooms, restrooms, parking garages, trainings and through work-related communications.
The convention envisions a world of work free of violence and harassment for all workers and recognizes gender-based violence and harassment as an occupational health and safety issue and as a manifestation of gender discrimination, which can be compounded by other forms of discrimination.
To truly prevent gender-based violence and harassment, we must do more than just prohibit unlawful conduct; we must attack its root causes. Organizations need to think beyond the anti-discrimination requirements of Title VII, which sets the minimum legal requirements for employers but may not necessarily represent what is actually equitable in the workplace.
Convention 190 can inspire us to better prevent gender-based violence and harassment from occurring, and to make sure responses are meaningful when it happens. The good news is we’re seeing progress all over the region, especially in the five years after so many brave survivors came forward and sparked the #MeToo movement.
Some examples:
- In 2018, the Vermont state government launched Workplaces for All, a campaign to educate employers, workers and the public on protections from sexual harassment and violence. The initiative also provided best practices for preventing and addressing sexual harassment and violence.
- In Connecticut, the state enacted a law in 2019 requiring all employers with three or more employees to provide sexual harassment training to every employee, expanding its policy that requires businesses with 50 or more employees to provide managers with such training.
- In April of 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration updated the state’s Sexual Harassment Model Policy. Ground-breaking when first established in 2018, the legislation requires a review and update every four years. Among other newly established provisions, the 2023 harassment policy includes protections for remote workers.
With the release of the first U.S. National Plan to End Gender-Based Violence in spring of 2023, the federal government has already committed to think beyond Title VII. For example, the Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau and the International Labour Office for the United States and Canada are hosting a series of national and regional meetings at which stakeholders will collaborate on strategies to help eliminate gender-based violence and harassment in the world of work.
Their first regional convenings were held in Seattle and Denver this spring, giving employers, unions, workers and government leaders opportunities to discuss the devastation caused by gender-based violence and harassment, its root causes and how to develop models to help bring it to an end.
As our workplaces have evolved and continue to change, so too must our policies and programs. We need to grow above and beyond the foundations of Title VII. We have the updated tools to build a world of work free of violence and harassment for all workers — the time to use them is now.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Jill Ashton: A new approach to end gender-based violence and harassment at work.
