More than a year after the town’s insurers demanded that Secaucus improve the anti-harassment training given to municipal volunteers, the town will finally debut this new training this month, along with a more formal anti-harassment policy for volunteers.
The training will be given to about 180 municipal volunteers who primarily work in the Fire Department and Department of Recreation. Volunteers with the Office of Emergency Management will also get the training.
Town Administrator David Drumeler said last week that he expects members of the Secaucus Volunteer Fire Department to receive the revised training during firehouse meetings throughout September. Drumeler planned to meet with the department’s three chiefs late last week to brief them on the new training and to discuss scheduling times for the training.
People who volunteer as Little League coaches through the Department of Recreation will be required to receive the beefed up anti-harassment training at the start of each athletic season. Football coaches will be among the first recreation volunteers to get the new training since it is a sport that begins in the fall.
Few people in Secaucus have seen the video thus far.
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Video provides overview of civil rights, harassment
The revised training primarily consists of a 12-minute video that volunteers will be required to watch with their managers.
The video, titled “The Rights and Duties of a Volunteer in Local Government,” was produced by the Municipal Excess Liability Joint Insurance Fund and shows five actors discussing discrimination issues as they relate to municipal volunteers. The cast includes a “mayor,” a “volunteer fire chief,” the “head of the volunteer ambulance corps,” the “recreation director,” and a “municipal attorney,” who are all actors playing these roles and who are working from a prepared script.
Throughout the video, the mayor, recreation director, fire chief, and ambulance corps director shower the attorney with questions regarding volunteers in the workplace and harassment. The script is written to mimic a typical management meeting.
“As you may know, we’ve had incidents of wrongdoing in the workplace in many parts of this state,” the mayor states near the beginning of the video. “Such incidents are unacceptable. And I thought it would be helpful to have the municipal attorney talk to us about precautions we need to take.”
“To begin understanding this issue, you need to understand that volunteers have many of the same rights and responsibilities as governmental employees,” the municipal attorney replies.
Without using the names of any specific towns, plaintiffs, or defendants, the cast members discuss harassment, discrimination, the rights of whistle-blowers, and related issues as they relate to volunteers, giving real world examples throughout the video.
“We anticipate that our volunteers will watch this with their [fire house captains] or managers, and then have a discussion afterwards where [the volunteers] can ask questions,” Drumeler said.
If people have questions their managers can answer, those questions will either be referred to Drumeler or the town’s labor attorney for an answer.
Few aware of content
So far, few people in Secaucus have seen the video.
Last week Town Councilman Michael Gonnelli, a former deputy fire chief who now serves as the council’s liaison to the Fire Department, said he couldn’t comment on the video because hadn’t seen it yet.
Other members of the Town Council also have not previewed the video.
Fire Chief George Schoenrock said he has yet to be apprised of the new training.
“I know there’s a video that’s been made and I know we’re going to be required to show it to our members, but I haven’t seen it yet,” he said. “I’m not even sure if it’s something we’re suppose to show to our members, or if the town is going to be showing it to the department.”
In addition to the video, the town’s insurers also demanded that Secaucus improve its written anti-harassment policy regarding volunteers. This written policy still was not completed by press time. Drumeler indicated that it would, however, be finished before firefighters and coaches begin the video training in mid-September.
E-mail E. Assata Wright at awright@hudsonreporter.com.