no means no
Feb. 10th, 2009 09:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
astroaztec$employer is pushing its program to comply with California Law AB 1825. This is the law that requires larger employers to offer 2 hours of training about sexual harassment every 2 years.
I don't know if anyone has studied the efficacy of the programs for accomplishing the intent of the law. It is obvious to the casual google user that it has resulted in a significant business for agencies offering to perform the training and reckon the compliance. $employer has engaged one of these third party web-based educators to satisfy its legal obligations. Clearly the principal goal of the third party is to demonstrate their own efficacy at checking names off on the list. That's where this whole endeavour starts to get weird.
The agents of $employer and $educator both emphasize the legal requirement of AB 1825. They do not point out that the law makes no statement about the action of the employee, in particular that there is no legal stipulation for the employee to accept the training. Of course they don't mention that, for that would probably be considered poisonous to their due diligence in complying with the law. That's annoying, but understandable.
It goes beyond understandable in the materials distributed by both $employer and $educator. The web-based program is basically equivalent to locking each employee in a closed, private room with a merciless overseer whose only intent is to reach its goal. The e-mails from $educator and $employer use phrases which are basically "don't worry", "it's easy", "everyone else is doing it". And in the subtext of the whole interaction is a tacit threat: "your job -- your advancement -- your standing in the organization depends on you doing this".
Wait a minute. What are we supposed to be being trained not to do? Aren't we being subjected to exactly the sorts of techniques we're supposed to be trained not to do? Something is very wrong here.
There are more personal, more human ways of offering this training, but they are almost certainly more expensive to $employer. Furthermore, indications from the blogosphere are that when such courses are offered in person the presenters often lose control to the audience challenges about how silly the process is, and how it wastes two hours to give 5 minutes worth of material. That's not just more expensive to $employer, it's also personally taxing on $educator.
It would be beyond ironic if the sexual harassment agents of $employer did not allow that "no means no", or if they were to be complicit with even subtle coercion or threat against employees for not complying with such a suggestion from a superior.
"No."
And with that stance, I may learn whether $employer is capable of seeing itself in a mirror.
I don't know if anyone has studied the efficacy of the programs for accomplishing the intent of the law. It is obvious to the casual google user that it has resulted in a significant business for agencies offering to perform the training and reckon the compliance. $employer has engaged one of these third party web-based educators to satisfy its legal obligations. Clearly the principal goal of the third party is to demonstrate their own efficacy at checking names off on the list. That's where this whole endeavour starts to get weird.
The agents of $employer and $educator both emphasize the legal requirement of AB 1825. They do not point out that the law makes no statement about the action of the employee, in particular that there is no legal stipulation for the employee to accept the training. Of course they don't mention that, for that would probably be considered poisonous to their due diligence in complying with the law. That's annoying, but understandable.
It goes beyond understandable in the materials distributed by both $employer and $educator. The web-based program is basically equivalent to locking each employee in a closed, private room with a merciless overseer whose only intent is to reach its goal. The e-mails from $educator and $employer use phrases which are basically "don't worry", "it's easy", "everyone else is doing it". And in the subtext of the whole interaction is a tacit threat: "your job -- your advancement -- your standing in the organization depends on you doing this".
Wait a minute. What are we supposed to be being trained not to do? Aren't we being subjected to exactly the sorts of techniques we're supposed to be trained not to do? Something is very wrong here.
There are more personal, more human ways of offering this training, but they are almost certainly more expensive to $employer. Furthermore, indications from the blogosphere are that when such courses are offered in person the presenters often lose control to the audience challenges about how silly the process is, and how it wastes two hours to give 5 minutes worth of material. That's not just more expensive to $employer, it's also personally taxing on $educator.
It would be beyond ironic if the sexual harassment agents of $employer did not allow that "no means no", or if they were to be complicit with even subtle coercion or threat against employees for not complying with such a suggestion from a superior.
"No."
And with that stance, I may learn whether $employer is capable of seeing itself in a mirror.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 06:15 am (UTC)Layoffdaily.com proves my point!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 06:49 am (UTC)