Chambana Sun

Senate Bill 0075, which creates the Hotel and Casino Employee Safety Act and requires employers to provide workplace sexual harassment training, strikes state Rep. Dan Caulkins (R-Decatur) as being fair enough on its merits, but the first-term state representative wishes it more fairly addressed all the episodes and concerns he thinks led to its enactment.

“There were some things that I thought were a little overreaching, but overall it’s a decent bill,” Caulkins told the Chambana Sun. “The bill, for what it does, is pretty good mandating that training extend some protections to workers who in the past seemed to be more targeted.”

Caulkins said his concerns arise from the bill doing very little to address any of the allegations of harassment that have dogged Springfield over the last year or so and first opened the floodgates for such legislation.

“We need to be strengthening and more aggressive in protecting people that have accused people in Springfield of being predators,” Caulkins said. “We don’t seem to have the same concerns about people that have come forward. We kind of left them out of the equation. I thought that was hypocritical. I think we should be more sensitive and more proactive in addressing the concerns of the people that have come forward with complaints about harassment because if you think anything is just happenstance in the House, you haven’t spent anytime observing.”

The bill also has special provisions for hotels and casinos, extending a Chicago ordinance that requires panic buttons be provided for those who work in isolated spaces that they can easily access in case of harassment or assault. Those mandates are effective July 1, 2020.

“I signed on as a co-sponsor on the bill back when it was originally filed,” Caulkins added. “We did what we could for the private sector, but I don’t think we were strong enough in the public sector.”