Jones Fighting for Comprehensive Approach to Combatting Workplace Harassment

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A bill backed by state Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-Calumet City, will take steps toward a more comprehensive approach to ending workplace harassment and create guidelines and best practices for all employers.

“Workplace harassment causes great pain to the people being harassed,” Jones said. “We cannot ignore their situations. Too often, inappropriate conduct at work goes unchallenged and unchecked, and our values demand that we step in to help people who are held hostage by the threat of losing their paycheck. It’s time to send a message to any would-be harassers that their behavior will not be tolerated.”

Jones is sponsoring House Bill 905, which creates a Private Sector Workplace Anti-Harassment Task Force. Jones’ task force will produce policies to protect workers who are at high-risk of harassment due to their race, gender, immigration status, sexual orientation or reliance on tips, and implement those policies with the help of business leaders and the Illinois Department of Human Rights.

“Protecting workers from inappropriate colleagues is clearly the moral choice, but it also makes economic sense,” Jones said. “When people are free from harassment, they are more productive. Bolstering the Illinois economy means we must defend Illinois workers.”