Metro took several steps this week to address complaints that it wasn’t taking sexual harassment seriously enough.
The agency has established a new task force to address sexual harassment on the transit system, has created an email box ([email protected]) for complaints, and is urging its employees to report any cases to police, General Manager Richard Sarles told employees on Friday.
He specifically urged all workers to call Metro Transit Police if riders report any concerns, responding to complaints that some Metro workers had minimized, even laughed, when riders complained. He also called out Metro workers who make disrespectful comments to riders themselves.
“I was disturbed to hear their reports about assault and intimidation while riding trains and buses, particularly those accounts which involved our employees making disrespectful comments,” Sarles wrote to his more than 11,000 employees in a newsletter on Friday.
Several riders had testified at a D.C. Council hearing last month that Metro needed to take harassment more seriously, recounting stories of being groped on trains and accosted by masturbating men. They said other transit agencies had put up public service advertisements to address the issue.
The complaints became more heated, though, when a Metro spokesman told WUSA9 that “one person’s harassment is another person’s flirting.”
Since then, activists had been taking to Twitter, asking Metro to apologize for the comments and deal with the issue.
Read the rest here.
If you enjoy the content at iBankCoin, please follow us on Twitter
