How long must an employee suffer and be punished for making a valid, sustained complaint against a supervisory employee?
As I have chronicled in Part I and Part II of this series--there appears to be an issue percolating around an Escambia County employee that filed a harassment complaint against his supervisor.
Ever since his complaint was filed--it appears as if he has been stymied, stigmatized, and deprived of due process rights as mandated in county policy and relevant collective bargaining agreements.
I was contacted by this individual in November after this employee tried over and over to get resolution on his situation utilizing his chain of command with no success--for nearly 6 MONTHS!.
Nobody was listening.
I listened, and I am listening.
I have received a copy of the five page HR investigation summary of this employee's harassment claim against his supervisor. The report corroborates what this employee claims. This report was completed, and recommendations were made for resolution, on June 24th of this year.
But then the report was shelved. Nobody did anything with it, and the employee asked over and over and over for a copy. He asked over and over and over to get back to his job. He was stymied. Nothing was given to him for five months. Meanwhile, he was prevented from working shifts he traditionally has worked and this has had the net effect of reducing his income by 15-18% over what he has earned in the past.
So upon my receipt of the report, I immediately thought I would publish it--after all, it was inactive and nothing was being done on it. Jim Little of the PNJ saw part I on my blog and made a public records request for the 5-page report. So I asked our attorney if it was a public record releasable on my blog and also to the PNJ.
Here is what I asked of our attorney:
"As
you know, Jim Little from the PNJ has made a public request of me for the email
string below as well as the embedded photographs within what I am forwarding to
you in this email—which includes the first five pages of an HR document from
June (?) of this year apparently. Because I want to comply and I always
do comply with the state public records statutes—please supply the specific
statutory exemption that applies and which precludes me from sending the below
string specifically--- to include the photographs embedded-- to Jim Little in
answer to his public records request. Please be specific.
As
you and I discussed, I know this does not comport specifically with county
policy—but that in and of itself
