Pittsburgh creates Office of Equal Protection to enforce disability and civil rights, labor laws

Pittsburgh has created a new city office that will work to ensure disability rights, civil rights and labor laws are enforced in the city.

The Office of Equal Protection will become part of Mayor Ed Gainey’s Office and be headed by Zeke Rediker, who serves as the mayor’s executive adviser of legal policy.

“It is essential to our most vulnerable residents to protect them against discrimination, unfair labor practices and public nuisances,” Gainey said Friday during a news conference at the City-County Building.

Rediker said the office will work to enforce various laws, including the city’s paid sick leave law that requires employers to give their workers time off if they’re ill and the city’s prevailing wage law that requires the city’s business partners to pay their workers “a living wage.”

It will work to enforce city regulations to protect communities from public nuisances and the fair hiring law that ensures the city and its contractors don’t discriminate against people because of prior criminal records. It also will work with the local disability community to tackle ADA compliance issues.

The three-person office will include the city’s new ADA Coordinator Michelle Walker, who is set to begin in her new role Monday.

“We are here to offer support for the disability community,” she said, explaining that because she has been deaf and hard of hearing since birth, she’s aware of the struggles people in that community may face.

“This office will provide an accessible way for Pittsburghers to file complaints that we will help investigate and resolve,” Rediker said.

All of the positions in the new office were already included in the city’s budget, Rediker said. The new office is simply a reorganization of existing positions to bring them together in a single office housed within the Mayor’s Office, he said.