A clarification of an existing Public Records Act (PRA) exemption on employment investigations is being quickly moved along the legislative process ahead of the February 21 policy committee cutoff deadline. AWC supports the clarification as an important step to protecting the integrity of discrimination and harassment investigations and the personal information of those involved in an investigation.
HB 1934 is a bipartisan bill sponsored by Rep. Rob Chase (R–Liberty Lake) and Rep. Beth Doglio (D–Olympia). The bill clarifies the existing PRA exemption that applies to records in connection with discrimination or harassment investigations. Specifically, the bill makes it clear that in addition to redacting the names of complainants, accusers, and witnesses from investigation records, those investigation participants’ images, employee job titles, email addresses, and phone numbers should also be redacted, and any audio recordings of those participants’ voices taken during an investigation should be altered so they are unrecognizable (while maintaining inflection and tone). The agency must inform the person that their personally identifying information will be redacted or their voice recordings altered unless they consent to disclosure. A requester can still obtain the underlying records themselves, but not the identifying information of investigation participants.
AWC supports this commonsense clarification of the existing investigation records exemption. The existing exemption is meant to protect workers that come forward with difficult experiences of workplace discrimination and harassment so they feel free to tell their story without fear of retribution from the accused. As anyone that works in government knows, names are not the only way a person can be identified, and failing to redact other personally identifying information can render the existing exemption useless. Violators of workplace harassment and discrimination laws could make a PRA request and obtain enough information to find out the identity of their victim or witnesses.
Cities need their employees to know that they will be protected from retribution by the accused in these sensitive investigations so employees can feel empowered to come forward with their experiences. Many employees may not feel like they can safely call attention to discrimination or harassment if their identity can be discovered during an investigation, and cities could be ultimately held liable for failing to correct workplace discrimination or harassment. Cities should sign in to support this commonsense bill.
Dates to remember
HB 1934 is scheduled for a hearing in the House State Government & Tribal Relations Committee on February 18 at 1:30 pm, and is scheduled for a committee vote on February 21 at 8 am.