How #MeToo has (or has not) changed activity as usual, a year later

Nearly a year ago, Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood power actor, had been deeply sexually harassed and deeply rooted. He highlighted a culture of impropriety and predatory behavior that had permeated the entertainment industry. It also triggered the #MeToo movement, where people felt empowered to share their stories of harassment with the goal of bringing the guilty, some powerful or famous, to justice. The movement and sense of awareness that it has generated has spread to other parts of society, including the workplace. But have there been real changes in this regard? Gillian Thomas, a women's rights advocate for the ACLU, discussed this topic with Marketplace Morning Report facilitator, David Brancaccio. You will find below a transcript of their conversation.

David Brancaccio: We are loyal to these newsletters from a year ago … the story of Harvey Weinstein's bomb. Did this advance the laws? He moved the needle on the crop.

Gillian Thomas: The legislation really did not result from the # MeToo moment. Many laws have been introduced in the last year –

Brancaccio: You count them.

Thomas: In more than 30 states [there were] About 125 laws have been passed in the country. I know that sounds promising, but most of this legislation was really about the regulation of the legislature's policies on sexual harassment and their responses to those allegations. And most of the measures that have been promulgated also relate to that, but very few have been enacted.

Brancaccio: The few laws that were promulgated thus concerned lawmakers who did bad things and prevented them from doing bad things.

Thomas: And some other things. I do not want to be so pessimistic. In California, of course –

Brancaccio: Because of Hollywood.

Thomas: And just because California is its own sovereign nation. In California, an adopted measure requires employers to undergo mandatory training and to put in place better complaint procedures. Two other states that may surprise you, Louisiana and Virginia, have also adopted similar legislation. Then in Vermont, legislation was passed that dealt with the issue of confidentiality agreements. The issue of non-disclosure agreements has really been addressed through the Weinstein scandal, and there are actually two different types. The first type is the one that employees sign when they start a job saying that you will not say anything negative about the company, even to your colleagues, let alone strangers. And then there is also the kind of non-separation, non-disclosure agreements that are inserted into settlement agreements once the allegations have been raised. The first, the pre-employment agreements, were a specific target in Vermont, [the state] forbids the ones. On the issue of non-disclosure agreements inserted in the regulations, there is not as much consensus as to whether the best thing to do is to outlaw them, because, if they are prohibited Some lawyers believe that this will actually encourage employers to redouble their efforts to force victims into a sue or go-silent enigma.

Brancaccio: Shareholder lawsuits are another avenue where the law has touched the consequences of #MeToo. sue companies, saying that you do not do enough and that we ended up holding the bag.

Thomas: It's really extraordinary. These are some of the biggest names in some of the biggest scandals that have been revealed. So it all started with Fox, and there was a shareholder dispute that was resolved for over $ 90 million a year ago and resulted in a lot of program changes, followed by the Wynn group, [Wynn Resorts CEO] Steve Wynn, [there were] allegations of harassment against [him] over several years. And then CBS as a result of the [Les] The Moonves scandal, as well as this month only, Nike was pursued by a group of shareholders.

Brancaccio: As we know, many companies still have not received the memo on this subject, but are there any companies that are trying to determine how, in your opinion, to respond correctly to such an appalling cultural problem? ?

Thomas: I really think there is some. My friends at the bar of management, who represent employers in their practice, tell me that their phones are ringing right away. Whether for fear of prosecution or negative publicity or simply because they want to do what is right.

Brancaccio: Businesses call it saying "What are we supposed to do? We have these allegations" or "We want to make sure that this will not happen here."

Thomas: Yes, it's the last one. It goes from the front with the allegations, you have to know, "OK, we have a harassment policy and a paper complaint procedure, but how can we really make it work?" Nobody uses them . " And of course, statistics show that people do not use these policies because they fear reprisals. And these studies also show that retaliation usually results from filing complaints. So many employers say, "How can we get this right [and] How can we do better? "

Brancaccio: And what is the answer?

Thomas: Oh, how long have you been? What you really need is a downward commitment. The EEOC, the Commission for Equal Opportunities in Employment, released a report from the task force a few years ago presenting a number of different risk factors stating that "the job market" is a good example. an employer could be more exposed to harassment in its ranks. Then we also detailed the best practices and, as I said, a top-down response – the message from the top, that it counts, that there will be a responsibility. And you know, the workout. The training takes a very bad reputation for a very simple and good reason, which is that most workouts are terrible. And also, it does not happen enough. "Such bad food and such small portions", no?

Brancaccio: Anti-harassment training, anti-discrimination training.

Thomas: This is true. I mean, we are entering our workplaces full of baggage of culture, our education, our families, our relationships. And it is simply ridiculous to assume that a video training of half an hour once a year will do anything to change anything. Thus, the best training is recognized as interactive, including hypothetical scenarios in which the participant is involved, that occur frequently and that are part of a broader regime of mutual respect, creating culture. It should not simply be done to avoid liability, but to create a place where everyone feels safe.

Brancaccio: For proactive businesses. What about companies that really deal with the problem that caught their attention in their ranks?

Thomas: I think that to deal with a problem, the experience of the experts and, of course, the experience that I have observed, is to make sure that an external third party conducts a thorough investigation. The people who investigate the boss can not be so responsible to him. Another thing that is really important is to have all managers identify and then resolve the harassment. You know, the articles we read in the press are really the outliers, the top of the corporate hierarchy. Most acts of harassment are committed by colleagues or middle managers. And so, empower everyone and conduct investigations that let people know they will be safe and encourage them to speak up. And the last thing I would say is that there is a lot of talk about overcorrection with respect to the removal of people for offenses that should not be punishable. I really think that the experts in this field, who study it for a living, understand that there is a whole range of behaviors and that dismissal is sometimes the only appropriate remedy. But you talk to most people who are harassed, and they just want it to stop. They do not want someone to be fired. Once again, there are cases where shooting is appropriate. But there are many types of remedies between doing nothing and shooting.