The Town of Minto has approved creation of a “watch list” of individuals believed to have harassed or discriminated against municipal employees here.
At the Sept. 11 meeting, council approved a recommendation from a Sept. 7 report from the municipality’s Joint Health and Safety Committee (JHSC) in response to “a couple of occurrences involving staff and third parties, in the past week.”
The report recommends expanding a section of the town’s workplace violence and harassment policy dealing with harassment by third parties.
Previously, the section advised employees who believed they had been harassed or discriminated against by “someone who is not a member of our organization,” to report the harassment to a department head or the JHSC.
“Although the town has limited control over third parties, we will do our best to address the issue and prevent further problems from arising,” the policy stated.
Watch List file
The revised section now calls for a department head, upon receiving a report of third party harassment or discrimination, to “decide whether that individual’s name and the details regarding the occurrence be added to the on-going ‘Watch List’ file.”
The report states the watch list file is only accessible by staff and council and “not to be divulged” to anyone outside the Town of Minto organization, “except to those privileged to such information as part of an investigation.” The department head is to then email the details to the CAO/Clerk, who will “determine whether an email to all staff and council is warranted.”
“We will definitely want to keep this as confidential as possible and feel it will be administered on a need-to-know basis,” said recreation services manager Matt Lubbers.
The report notes that “due to the nature of business, staff may be at risk of volatile individuals both inside and outside the workplace.”
CAO/Clerk Bill White noted “we’ve had a couple of things go on and staff handled them very well.”
