The so-called Seattle Silence Breakers is comprised of city workers from all different divisions, but the one thing they have in common is their frustration with ineffective human resources departments that have consistently failed them. Most in the group say they either witnessed or experienced an HR department that was weak or unsupportive and seemed more interested in protecting the city.
Complaints from workers include harassment, sexism, discrimination and sexual abuse. "People who do complain, HR turns on them," says Doreen McGrath, a former Seattle IT employee. "[Executives] say, 'Report it, report it, report it.' But people who report it get retaliated against."
While many individual city departments have their own HR office, the city also has a central Settle Department of HR, charged with administrative duties citywide as well as personnel concerns for some of the smaller HR departments.
Mayor Jenny Durkan is in favor of creating a more centralized HR office. Having a decentralized setup where each department has its own HR unit makes it hard to have a good overview of how HR is doing city-wide. "Because of the way we've set it up, there's a completely disparate set of functions," Durkan says.
A follow-up Crosscut post notes that there was plenty of dysfunction within HR itself. Turnover has been a problem with 72 HR employees having left since 2014. The department has about 100 employees.
"HR is not there for employees; HR is there to protect the city," one former Seattle HR department employee says. That employee left after one year because of stress. "I would not trust HR to investigate anyone. I would get a lawyer."
Durkan also notes the difficulties in getting a good sense of any particular concerns in the current system and that she isn't even aware of how many people have filed sexual harassment and gender bias complaints. "At any given time, as the mayor, if I said 'Do we have a problem with sexual harassment? How many complaints have been brought?,' no one could answer that," Durkan says. "They were settling things in darkness."