The North Little Rock City Council will consider changes, including preventing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, to the city's hiring policy at its meeting next week.
Ordinance 15-19, added Friday to Monday's council agenda, will insert "sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status" to reasons that the city can't discriminate against for employment or services under the city's Equal Opportunity policy. The legislation is sponsored by Aldermen Debi Ross, Linda Robinson and Steve Baxter.
Conway on Tuesday approved a similar ban on discrimination within its city government in a 6-2 vote.
"It is something we've been working on for a while," Ross said Friday. "Basically it's a clarification that the city of North Little Rock does not discriminate against its employees."
This week's City Council meeting was postponed because of snow, which is why the council is meeting Monday. The council regularly meets on the second and fourth Mondays of each month.
Both North Little Rock's and Conway's ordinances apply only to their city governments and won't affect businesses, unlike a law approved earlier this month in Eureka Springs. A new state law, passed as Senate Bill 202 and set to take effect this summer, restricts local anti-discrimination legislation but doesn't apply to city government employment practices or policies.
During the council's meeting Feb. 9, Ross made a motion to amend language in the city's Personnel Manual to include "sexual orientation" as protected from discrimination under the policy's "Filling Vacancies" section. The motion passed 7-0, with Alderman Beth White absent, but an emergency clause was defeated by the same vote.
The new legislation doesn't include an emergency clause. The lack of an emergency clause would have the policy change take effect in 60 days instead of immediately.
"What we amended in last time was for sexual orientation," Ross said. "This is just to make everything uniform through city policy and through EEOC [Equal Opportunity Employment Commission], bringing it all up to date."
The new legislation goes further in its protection than the previous minor addition, Baxter said Friday.
"We didn't quite go all the way through it to make sure we covered all of our bases," Baxter said. "This is taking it one step further, in my opinion."
The amended city's Non-Uniformed Employees' Policy and Procedures, if approved, would begin with: "The City of North Little Rock is committed to fair and equal opportunity in employment and service delivery regardless of race, color, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, national origin or veteran status. This policy statement reinforces and communicates that commitment to employees."
"Discrimination of any kind is unacceptable," Ross said. "We want the language to be as clarified as possible, so there are no questions."
Even without that wording in its current policy, North Little Rock doesn't have a history of discriminatory hiring practices, said Betty Anderson, the city's EEOC officer and Human Resources Department director.
"We don't have any cases," Anderson said. "We've never had any discrimination claims based on any of those issues. They [the sponsoring aldermen] want that in there as a protection now. They requested it."
Deputy City Attorney Matt Fleming said the issue is based on "obviously some interest within the community at large."
The legislation will "add that those groups specifically noted wouldn't be discriminated against in our personnel determination," Fleming said.
An online petition begun by V.L. Cox, a North Little Rock artist, asked North Little Rock Mayor Joe Smith to encourage the City Council to adopt a citywide anti-discrimination ordinance, in response to the new state law. Cox contends that the law can allow discrimination against gay and transgendered people, as well as the homeless and the poor. Smith responded last week that residents should contact their state representatives about their concerns.
Metro on 02/28/2015