[Adopted by the Board of Selectmen 7-25-1990; amended in its entirety 4-27-1994]
A.
Recognizing that harassment on any of the bases covered by federal
and state antidiscrimination statutes is unlawful, it is the policy
of the Town of Orleans that harassment in the workplace is not acceptable
and will not be tolerated. All employees of the Town of Orleans, whether
management personnel or nonmanagement personnel, are expected to avoid
any behavior or conduct toward another employee that has the purpose
or effect of interfering with an individual's work performance or
creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.
B.
Harassment is defined as verbal or physical conduct that shows hostility
or aversion toward an individual because of his/her race, color, religion,
gender, national origin, age or disability, that either has the purpose
or effect of:
C.
The following conduct has been identified as harassment by the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission:
(1)
Epithets, slurs, negative stereotyping, or threatening, intimidating
or hostile acts (including physical contact) that relate to race,
color, religion, gender, national origin, age or disability.
(2)
Written or graphic material that denigrates or shows hostility
or aversion toward an individual or group because of race, color,
religion, gender, national origin, age or disability and that is placed
on walls, bulletin boards or elsewhere on the employer's premises,
including vehicles, or circulated in the workplace.
A.
Any employee who believes that he or she has been the subject of
harassment should report the alleged act to his or her supervisor
immediately. In the event that such conduct has been either performed
or tolerated by the supervisor, the conduct should be reported to
the Administrative Assistant or if unavailable, to the Town Executive.
An investigation into such complaints will be undertaken immediately.
The privacy of the employee under investigation, and of the complaining
employee/alleged victim shall be respected at all times. To the extent
permissible under applicable public records statutes, we will keep
the records and information concerning any complaint or investigation
confidential; all parties involved in a complaint/investigation are
expected to respect this confidentiality.
B.
Any supervisor, agent or other employee who has been found by the
administration after appropriate investigation to have harassed another
employee will be subject to appropriate sanctions, from a verbal warning
documented in his or her personnel file, up to and including termination.
All parties involved will be notified of the resolution of the complaint
following the outcome of the investigation. The administration recognizes
that false accusations can have serious effects on innocent men and
women, therefore, employees willfully providing false information
will be subject to sanctions.
A pleasant working environment free of discrimination is the
goal of the Town of Orleans, and is the result of continued responsible
action on the part of all town employees. All employees are asked
to be sensitive to the individual feelings and rights of their coworkers.
The administration encourages employees to raise any questions that
he or she may have regarding this policy statement or regarding harassment
or discrimination with the Administrative Assistant.
