(Names were changed to respect the privacy of all involved. I added the SA trigger warning even though this involves SH. There is mention of my past experience with SA, but to my knowledge, no full on SA happened.)

I (26M) am a union steward in my office, and am serving my third term in this role. a couple of weeks back, fellow steward B (30F) approached me with a very concerning report she had received from a fellow coworker Daisy (early/mid 20s F). A couple of days before, she and fellow coworker George (mid 30s M) had called out sick. Daisy and George are close personal friends outside of work, but they were not the only two people that called out sick that day because of a stomach bug that was going around the office, so nothing was unusual about it.

Our station manager Griffin (late 30s M) seemed to think otherwise. even though there were a handful of other employees around the office that called out too, Griffin had gone up to Daisy and pressed her about why she and George had happened to call out on the same day. Daisy told him that the both of them calling out sick the same day was a coincidence, and that she was physically unable to work as she was throwing up. Griffin responded by asking her if George was "throwing up between her legs". B didn't give any further details beyond that.

Honestly what B had told me horrified me. I knew from past grievances that Griffin had a track record of bullying people in my office, but this was a new low. B said she had tried to get a statement from Daisy about the situation, but Daisy refused to provide the statement she had written out of fear of retaliation from Griffin. This is B's first term as steward, so she was looking for my advice on how to convince Daisy that letting us grieve (report) this was the right thing to do. Since B has a better relationship with Daisy overall, I told her that she would have a better time convincing her than I would. I told her to just be there for her while she's dealing with this, and that I would try to find other witnesses.

While taking care to respect Daisy's privacy, I asked other employees if they had seen Griffin saying anything 'especially heinous' to anyone as of late. The only two people who I gave details to were her older sister Lily (28F) (who also worked in our office), and George. The only person who knew anything further was George, who claimed Daisy had gone to him crying after the interaction. He said he was the one who convinced her to at least document the situation, even if she wasn't going to go to the union to grieve it. I asked him if he was willing to give a statement to that affect, but because he didn't directly witness the interaction in question, he didn't feel it was his place to write anything about it.

I had also attempted to go to Daisy myself in that time. Without telling her directly that I knew about the situation (I wasn't sure that Daisy wanted B to let anyone else know about it), I let her know that other employees had reported Griffin intimidating/bullying them recently, and if she saw/heard him do anything to anyone on the workroom floor, to please let us (me or B) know so we could do something about it. She told me that her and Griffin 'weren't on speaking terms' at the moment, but if she saw anything, she would let me know.

That's unfortunately where things were left from there. Our union only has 14 days from the incident date to grieve workplace offences, and those 2 weeks came and went without us being able to convince George or Daisy to give a statement for us to report in that time. All the while, Griffin went on a bit of a power trip. Several employees came to me in that time with statements accounting the usual bullying/intimidating tactics we've caught him on countless times in the past, but in a much higher volume than what we'd usually see. There's a long list of grievances the union has filed against him for this behavior in the past, and several instances where we've demanded sensitivity retraining from him to correct the behavior. He's already stated publicly that he learns nothing from this retraining, but to establish a deep enough bank of precedent to show the behavior will not be corrected, this is the meticulous game of chess we have to play.

Not going to lie, after hearing about the SH, I lost my patience. I couldn't wait any longer establishing precedent if there was no guarantee how much longer I would have to wait to have Griffin removed. I was a victim of a SA when I was very young, so I have zero patience and zero tolerance for any of that BS anywhere around me, and being as close of friends as I am to Lily, this happening to her younger sister of all people triggered me.

Grieving this through the union unfortunately was no longer an option, but there are two other avenues you can take in my job. You can make an official HR claim, but that avenue is only for victims or direct witnesses. Since i know about this situation fourth-hand, I can't use that avenue. The last option is to make a workplace safety report normally only used to report faulty/defective equipment, but our sister union (the union that covers employees of other crafts in our workplace) has utilized it to report hostile management practices. I took a page out of our sister union's book and filed this report; citing the SH and a hostile work environment (fear of retaliation). I attached my investigation notes to this report, and handed it in to the opening supervisor. I watched this supervisor as he filed this report, and after he did, he asked me, "Are you sure this is what Daisy wants?"

I know he said this potentially as some thinly veiled attempt to protect his boss, but it gave me pause. Some of my confidence eroded and a feeling of dread replaced it. People have told me that the stigma against victims is why so many SAs and SHs go unreported. Ultimately, I made the decision to make this public for her, and despite having my own trauma around SA, I was too young to feel the scrutiny that comes after, or at least to comprehend it. I'm on a vacation out of town next week, so I won't be able to help shield her if she does get any of this unfair scrutiny from the incoming HR investigation.

I have asked some friends disconnected from my office drama about this, and while they understand the moral dilemma, they think I ultimately still did the right thing. Still, I can't shake the feeling that I acted far too brashly. If this WAS the right thing to do, why am I still afraid to tell Daisy, Lily or B about it? I know at least warning them is the right thing to do, and I'll tell them when I'm done typing this out, But AITAH for reporting this before asking Daisy if this is what she wanted?