The Pine Bush Chamber of Commerce will hold a free sexual harassment training for its members on March 21, allowing local businesses to come into compliance with new New York state laws.

Effective Oct. 9, 2018, all New York state employers are required to adopt written sexual harassment prevention policies and provide annual anti-harassment training for employees. Employers must adopt the state’s model sexual harassment prevention policy and complaint form or implement their own policy and complaint form that equals or exceeds the state minimum standards.

The March training will be conducted by Jacobowitz and Gubits, LLP, a full-service law firm based in the Hudson Valley.

Jennifer Echevarria, associate attorney for Jacobowitz and Gubits, said the interactive training session will review scenarios surrounding harassment and its definition. The training will make employers and employees aware of new laws and of what constitutes sexual harassment.

“[The new mandate] tries to help people understand what constitutes sexual harassment in a better way than just a passive webinar,” Echevarria said.

Not only will the training bring employers into compliance with state law, it protects employers against potential lawsuits, Echevarria said. If an employee experiences harassment in the workplace and they were not provided training, the employee could bring a lawsuit against their employer.

“If you don’t provide the training and sexual harassment occurs in your workplace, the employer’s liability for the sexual harassment is going to be found easier because the employer didn’t take the time to train its employees,” Echevarria said. “So, it’s important that employers do the sexual harassment training to comply with state law but also to protect themselves in case of a lawsuit.”

Pine Bush Chamber of Commerce President Danielle Pappalardo said the chamber’s free training removes the financial burden of the training from employers, who otherwise would have to either pay for online trainings or hire a consultant to train their employees.
“By us doing this it at least eliminates the cost for the small business of bringing somebody else in,” Pappalardo said.

Currently, the training is only open for chamber members, however Pappalardo said the chamber might open the training to non-members for a small fee once they evaluate how many members have signed up.

To register, visit the chamber’s website at pinebushchamberofcommerce.org. The training will be from 7:30 to 9 a.m. on March 21, location to be determined.