[Dcouncil] Follow up to Recent Concern

[Mary Logue]

All,

Jefferson Science Associates

You all received the Friday, November 4th from an accelerator operator 
who expressed concern and outrage because on more than one occasion she 
has experienced bias due to her gender.The last instance was a 
technician calling into the MCC and asking to speak to a specific, male 
operator for no apparent reason, and did not clarify the reason.She 
stated that she has brought this concern to other male operators and 
supervisors, and she felt her concern was dismissed.

We wanted to share with you the actions taken and lessons learned along 
the way.If another worker asks you about the situation or shares 
incorrect information, please feel free to update or correct them.To 
respect all parties, please do not discuss particular names of those who 
may or may not be involved.

Upon receiving the email, Rolf quickly responded to the operator , 
assuring her that we found her experience distasteful and would follow 
up.The operator expressed appreciation for the quick response.

The following Monday morning, Andrew Hutton stood up in the 8am MCC 
meeting and strongly encouraged mutual respect regardless of 
differences, using this complaint as the pretext (How’s that for line 
management responsibility for D&I?).  The next day he was approached by 
the caller, a technician, involved.He had been asked by one of the other 
operators on shift to get some information.He phoned in to the control 
room and the female operator answered the phone.  He asked for the other 
operator three times by name until operator passed the call to the crew 
chief.  The caller had a strong Southern accent, so it is possible the 
female operator, who is from another country,misheard him.Andrew thanked 
the technicianfor coming forward, and suggested to him that he go to 
female operator, explain what happened, and apologize for any 
misunderstanding.The technician did just that.The operated reported that 
the technician apologized and explained his perspective.The operator 
also shared her perspective.As she put it, /“I am a woman, a scientist 
and an immigrant - I deal with bias on a daily basis. The biggest 
difference is, some people really truly think women are inferior, and 
some simply do not realize what they just did. The outcome for me is 
usually the same at first - I am genuinely offended and angry, but if 
they really didn't mean anything bad, I don't want to punish them, I 
want them to walk in my shoes.”/

The operator’s statement is one lesson we want to share across the site 
– you may not intend to sound sexist or racist, but you can 
inadvertently offend someone because of underlying perceptions (another 
form of implicit bias if you will).To keep the conversation going, we’re 
going to create a space on the D&I website to share information.We will 
pose a similar type of scenario and ask people to share what they 
think.We’ll let you know when that space has created so you can 
encourage people to respond.

The other lesson we want to share across the site is one of respecting 
others' concerns/perceptions; seek to understand and correct, and not 
dismiss them as having no value.We wove that into the D&I course we all 
just taught, but the conversation needs to continue.In Integrated Safety 
Management, we continue to emphasize how important it is forsupervisors 
to respond to workers; the same is true in Integrated D&I Management.

I’m sorry that the operator had such a distasteful experience, but I’m 
glad she brought it to the Council’s attention.You all reacted wisely in 
this instance.Fulvia, being Deputy Associate Director of the operator’s 
organization, reached out directly to her, with strong support from 
Andrew Hutton.The rest of you monitored the situation, and in a few 
instances, were able to correct misconceptions some of your co-workers 
had.The restraint you all demonstrated allowed us to quickly address the 
situation.Should we have another concern brought to your attention, 
either through e-mail or direct communication to one of you, this is how 
we would like all of us to react.Allow Rolf and I as co-chairs of the 
Council to work with HR and the line organization to address the 
situation.Our goal is to resolve things quickly and get some lessons 
learned out to all.If you believe we aren’t resolving issues quickly 
enough, please let us know.



Mary


-- 
Mary Logue
Associate Director, ESH&Q
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
12050 Jefferson Avenue, Suite 602
Newport News, VA 23606
757-269-7447

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