Yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit on a panel discussion sponsored by the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. Charles Krich, a Principal Attorney, also spoke and it was moderated by Deputy Director Cheryl Sharp.
The purpose of the discussion, before dozens of practitioners in the state, was to look at the state
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities from both attorneys and clients. And I’ve come to one conclusion:
The CHRO Complaint Procedure needs a reboot.
Now, before you dismiss this as a critical column – let’s be clear. I like many reboots. Sure, the Superman Returns movie paled in comparison to the Christopher Reeve version, but I thought the new Star Trek reboot was pretty snazzy.
Why do movies go through reboots? Because the formula that had worked for the movie series for so long has just stopped working.
Think George Clooney in Batman & Robin and then the reboot with Christian Bale.
And right now, the process that the CHRO has created is just not working. It’s not working for individuals, it’s not working for companies and, I believe, it’s not really working well for the agency itself. (And note too that I’m not suggesting the agency itself needs a reboot — though some have argued for that — rather, it’s the process as mandated by the law that this post is addressing.)
A reboot doesn’t mean failure; it doesn’t mean to throw out the entire formula. The agency has made some good strides on public outreach, for example, under the new leadership team. It is closing cases at a good clip and the mediation process seems better than in years past with dedicated staff just for mediations.
And I wouldn’t go so far as to say we live in a post-modern age where it has completely outlived its usefulness.
But the complaint procedure which was reworked a few years ago just isn’t working for anyone. Here’s why:Continue Reading The CHRO Complaint Process Needs A Reboot
So in a post earlier on Friday, I recapped most of the employment law legislation that passed — except one. That bill, Senate Bill 446, was titled “AN ACT CONCERNING THE DEFINITION OF THE TERM “DOMESTIC WORKER”.
Innocuous enough, right?
But as it turns out, that bill was used as a cover to pass through significant changes to the CHRO process.
You will see that many of the changes are ones that I had tipped you all on earlier this year. Then back in April, we were told that the bill was “mostly dead”.
But like the Princess Bride, “Miracle Max” worked some magic and the bill came back from the dead during the session’s last week.
And there are so many changes that a separate blog post seemed like the best way to get through it all.
So let’s get to it, shall we?
Overall, the OLR summary of the bill recaps four main areas of change to the CHRO. It:
But it also makes a significant change to the definition of who is an employee:
The bill also brings domestic workers who work for employers with at least three employees under the employment-related anti-discrimination laws administered by CHRO. Among other things, this provides them with (1) protections against employment-related discrimination based on their race, color, religion, age, sex, gender identity, marital status, national origin, ancestry, and mental or physical disability; (2) a right to a reasonable leave of absence for a disability resulting from a pregnancy and other pregnancy-related protections; and (3) protections against sexual harassment. By law, employees covered under the CHRO statutes can enforce their rights by filing a complaint with the commission.
If signed by the governor, the CHRO provisions will go into effect October 1, 2015, while the provisions on domestic workers will become effective January 1, 2016.
In more detail, the bill makes several changes to the CHRO process.
Responding to the Complaint
Continue Reading Back from the Dead: Procedural Changes Coming to CHRO and New Protections for Domestic Workers
Last year, the General Assembly considered changes to the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. That bill did not receive a final vote. This year, it’s back but recently died in the Judiciary Committee, according to the CBIA. Will it get attached to another bill? Will it be tweaked further this fall in preparation for next year’s term? My colleague, Christopher Parkin, chimes in with the details and why employers need to keep an eye on any proposed changes.
The ink is still drying on the most recent round of changes at the CHRO, the massive amendments known as PA 11-237 (in fact, the CHRO website still points to old versions of the General Statutes), but the legislature has been grappling with proposed changes to the statutes that govern the CHRO in the last few months.
These amendments, Senate Bill 385, represent a considerable effort to clean up antiquated language and recodify the statutes to make them more accessible to the public.
Among the hundreds of technical amendments built into the bill are plenty of new substantive changes that employers and their counsel will need to become familiar with. Recently the CBIA has noted that this particular effort has seemed to die in committee; however, the bill is likely to reappear at one point or another. Here are the details and the impact on employers when this is considered again.
Investigator and mediator will no longer be the same person
The CHRO has long been criticized for its practice of combining the mediation and investigation process by assigning a single investigator to handle both duties, a process the Commission has insisted is a function of insufficient funding. Until recently, mediations and fact findings were very frequently held consecutively in one marathon day.
Nobody is best served when these processes are combined. Neither employers nor employees can fully trust the confidentiality of the mediation process when the mediator will be tasked with soliciting testimony a few hours later if the case doesn’t settle.
It’s also not fair to the investigators to expect that they can fully partition their brain between mediation and investigation to conduct both appropriately.
Continue Reading A New “CAR” And Other Proposed Changes to CHRO – Can They Get It Right?
Earlier this week, I wrote about the perception among some that the CHRO has been retaining more cases for investigation by letting more cases through the Merit Assessment Review. These cases that used to be dismissed — mainly “frivolous” ones as I’ve collectively termed them — mean more headaches for employers who have to spend time and money defending against them.
(To simplify the blog post for readers, I labelled all these cases that had been dismissed at MAR together as “frivolous” even though there are technically different reasons why the CHRO may dismiss a case on Merit Assessment Review, including that there is “no reasonable possibility” that an investigation will lead to a reasonable cause finding of discrimination. )
In response to my blog post, CHRO Principal Attorney Charles Krich crafted a reply. While it is attached to the original blog post, I thought it notable enough that it warranted its own blog post. While he indicated that there were no statistics yet available, he “would not be surprised if fewer cases are being dismissed for no reasonable possibility” under the Merit Assessment Review.
Here’s his reply in full (my further comments are below):
Continue Reading CHRO Attorney Agrees Emphasis at Agency “Has Shifted From MAR to Mediation”
As I’ve noted before, the CHRO procedures were changed effective October 1, 2011. One question that we had at the time was whether the CHRO would be retaining more discrimination claims by employees for investigation — getting past the Merit Assessment Review stage.
Previously,
The dust is still settling on the flurry of activity in the closing hours of the General Assembly last night. It’s going to take a few days to get caught up on all the bills that were passed. Watch for more updates soon.
One of