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Archive for category Harassment and Discrimination

Sexual Harassment: Sexual Favoritism

Apr 18

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Sexual Favoritism is a form of sexual harassment. This type of harassment manifests in many forms. Find out whether your workplace suffers from this type of harassment.

Sexual Favoritism occurs when employees, who submit to a manager or supervisors sexual demands, are rewarded by that manager or supervisor.  The victims in this case are those employees, who do not submit to the demands, therefore do not receive the “benefits” of the submission.

An example is when employees, who are otherwise denied raises or promotions, may claim that they were penalized by the sexual attention directed at the favored coworkers.

This type of harassment: 

  • Creates a Hostile Environment
  • May also be addressed as Quid Pro Quo
  • May occur with frequency or occur once (such as Quid Pro Quo)
  • The harasser must have authority over the victim (supervisor or manager)

Liability

The employer may be held liable for unlawful sex discrimination against other persons who were qualified for but were denied that employment opportunity or benefit. The supervisor may also be held liable.

Note: isolated events and non-coerced submission to sexual demands have not been upheld by the courts as sexual harassment.  Isolated events and consensual relationships may not rise to the level of sexual harassment, but should be discouraged particularly in relationships between supervisors and subordinates

Court Case

Astra AB, a Swedish company, admitted it allowed a hostile work environment — including requests for sexual favors in exchange for favorable treatment — for women at its U.S. headquarters in Westboro, Massachusetts.

Award:            $9,850,000 in monetary damages

Protect your company — provide harassment prevention training for your employees.

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Age Discrimination Court Cases

Apr 18

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Age Harassment and Discrimination

Not sure whether the issue of age discrimination will effect you? Look at some of these Age Discrimination cases and monetary awards:  

Kmart Corporation will pay a settlement and furnish other relief to settle an age harassment, constructive discharge and retaliation lawsuit.  Over the course of four years, a pharmacy manager openly professed on several occasions that  the pharmacist was “too old,” “should just retire,” and was “greedy” for  continuing to work at age 70. Further, the manager continued to humiliate her in writing by stating, “The  pharmacy is no longer your forte” and “You need to retire from pharmacy work  now,” in a communication book open to the entire department.  The manager also purposely scheduled her to work on Sundays – knowing that she attended church those days.  

Award:             $120,000 in monetary relief

A Chicago-based restaurant supply company terminated a 64 year-old Sales Representative.  The employee was told, when laying him off, that he was selected because the company expected him to retire in 8 months when he reached age 65, and it wanted to keep younger sales representatives who had a future with the company.  

Award:             $162,000 in monetary relief

The Bayville Fire Company on Long Island  has agreed to settle a class age discrimination lawsuit. The suit had alleged that the fire company and villages had refused to let volunteer firefighters over age 65 accrue credit toward a “length of service  award” (LOSAP), the equivalent of a retirement pension, because of their  age. As a result, senior firefighters lost pension amounts after they turned 65.  

Award:             $180,000 — $240,000 in damages

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Hostile Environment Harassment Court Cases

Apr 10

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Here are example hostile environment sexual harassment court cases. These cases were completed by the EEOC.

Hostile Work Environment

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced a settlement with London International Group, LLC (LIG) in a lawsuit charging the Eufaula-based plant, which manufactures condoms, with subjecting a class of employees to a hostile work environment in which they have been subjected to numerous racially and sexually derogatory cartoons and comments since 1995.

Award:             $625,000 in monetary damages 

EEOC v. Cheap Tickets, et al., Case Number CV-02–7117-WJR (VBKx) alleges that, dating back to 2000; female agents working at Cheap Tickets’ Los Angeles Call Center were subjected to a sexually hostile work environment by their supervisors. Moreover, EEOC says that the woman who filed the initial discrimination charge was subjected to retaliation.

Award:             $1,100,000 in monetary damages 

Gurtz, an electrical subcontractor, and defendant Pickus, a general construction contractor, subjected female workers to a sexually hostile work environment. The complaint alleged that Pickus and Gurtz permitted sexually explicit and offensive graffiti about women in portable toilets and in other areas of the construction site and ignored sexually offensive remarks made to the charging party, a female electrician employed by Gurtz, who was an explicit target of some of the graffiti.

Award:             $50,000 in compensatory damage

In this Title VII suit, the San Francisco District Office alleged that a female charging party and two other female restaurant employees were subjected to physical and verbal sexual harassment by their supervisor. Defendant, a high-end restaurant in Hawaii, took no corrective action despite two of the women’s complaints to the general manager and thus the conduct continued. However, after a complaint by the third woman to corporate headquarters, defendant investigated the matter and fired the supervisor.

Award:             $245,000 in monetary damages

Supermercados Conchita, a supermarket chain in Puerto Rico, subjected charging party to same-sex sexual harassment. The male owner/general manager of the supermarkets subjected charging party (who had been hired as a bagger but was rapidly moved into management) to sexual comments, inappropriate touching, and sexual invitations.

Award:             $142,500 in monetary damages

Don’t end up in a lawsuit — train your supervisors and employees online!  Online Sexual Harassment Prevention Training Courses

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Quid Pro Quo Harassment Court Cases

Apr 10

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Not sure whether the issue of sexual harassment will effect you? Look at some of these Quid Pro Quo court cases and monetary awards:

Quid Pro Quo

Fifteen women were sexually harassed.  CEO of Del Laboratories of Farmingdale, N.Y, who occupied the most powerful position in the company, sought sexual favors in return for job benefits or opportunities, either by making promises to the women he harassed or by threatening them with unfavorable conditions if they refused his advancements. The case also contains hostile work environment issues, as well as, retaliation. 

Award:             $1,185,000 in monetary relief

Quid Pro Quo

Rivera Vineyards and its affiliates engaged in a pattern or practice of sexually harassing female workers and making job assignments based on sex; defendants also retaliated against women who complained about harassment. The harassment consisted of sexual comments, unwelcome rubbing and touching, offers of better assignments in exchange for sex, and in at least one case, forced submission to sexual intercourse.

Award:             $1,050,000 in monetary damages 

Quid Pro Quo (Sexual Favors)

A company which sells discounted leisure travel products subjected a group of female employees working at its Los Angeles call center to a sexually hostile working environment. The harassment included unwelcome touching, propositions for sexual favors and sexually charged speech from two male supervisors. The lawsuit further alleged that the defendant discharged the female employee who filed the initial charge of discrimination in retaliation for complaining about the harassment.

Award:             $1,100,000 in monetary damages

Protect yourself from lawsuits with economical, online training.  Train your supervisors and employees today!  Online Sexual Harassment Prevention Training Courses

Source: http://eeoc.gov/eeoc/newsroom/release/

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Harassment Complaint Form

Apr 10

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Victim Interview Form

An employee is claiming a supervisor sexually harassed her. 

What is your first step?  Interview the victim of course!  Take out your interview form and.…

What?  No interview form?  Get this handy Interview Form by clicking the link at the bottom of this post.

Document, document, document!  When faced with an employee who brings forth a claim of harassment or discrimination, it is imperative that you document all aspects of the claim.  This handy claim form will support the process.

Interview Form

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How to Document Harassment

Apr 10

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Documenting Harassment or Discrimination Claims

Documentation is very important.  Good documentation will support your position and provide credibility to your claim.  Keep a journal of all the events that contributed to the harassment and/or discrimination. 

 The following should be included in the documentation:

  • Date of occurrence
  • Location
    • Ex: In the company break room at 9:25 amHarassers
    • Ex: Mark Zinnnn was putting money into the candy machine
  • Witnesses
    • Ex: Mary Mrrrty was in the break room and Jeff Grrrty came in at 9:30 am
  • What happened
    • Describe the behaviors in detail, where everyone was located, what words or actions  occurred, who said or did the words or actions, and the result of the behaviors, i.e. you left the room, you cried, etc.
  • Whom you told and what you said afterwards
    • Ex: I told Jes Maeeeiy. I said…
  • Signature
  • Date written

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Art and Music and Harassment

Mar 3

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Harassment Through Art and Music 

Likewise, art or music that is seen as politically offensive, misogynistic, or sexually themed can lead to harassment liability.  A U.S. Court of Appeals in Slayton v. Ohio Dep’t of Youth Services, for instance, upheld a $125,000 damages award based in part on a coworker’s playing “misogynistic rap music” and displaying “music videos depict[ing] an array of sexually provocative conduct.” 52

 The injunction in another case barred the possession or display of any “sexually suggestive, sexually demeaning, or pornographic” 53 materials in the workplace, defining “sexually suggestive” as covering anything that “depicts a person of either sex who is not fully clothed … Read the rest of this entry »

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Joking: A Sexual Harassment Matter?

Feb 22

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Sexually Themed Jokes

Joking and Sexual HarassmentThe Montana Human Rights Commission has found a hostile environment based solely on off-color jokes and cartoons displayed in the workplace.  None of the jokes were said specifically to the complainant; none referred to her; the cartoons were distributed by men and women alike, apparently once or twice a month over several years; the cartoons weren’t even sexist or misogynistic.  The Commission, however, was not amused.  It concluded that the jokes “ha[d] no humorous value to a reasonable person,” and “offended [complainant] as a woman.”  The Commission ordered the city to pay damages, to “not … permit, tolerate, or condone the sexual harassment of any employee” (apparently including such humor), and to “evaluate on an annual basis the performance of each department head on the basis of the quality and success of their efforts to implement and enforce the antidiscrimination policies.” 39

Read the rest of this entry »

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Social and Political Commentary Harassment

Feb 22

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Social and Political Commentary HarassmentSocial and Political Commentary

Likewise, one court has said that coworkers’ use of job titles such as “foreman” and “draftsman” may constitute sexual harassment, 31 and a Kentucky human rights agency has gotten a company to change its “Men Working” signs (at a cost of over $35,000) on the theory that the signs “perpetuat[e] a discriminatory work environment and could be deemed unlawful under the Kentucky Civil Rights Act.” 32

Another court has characterized an employee’s hanging “pictures of the Ayatollah Khome[i]ni and a burning American flag in Iran in her own cubicle” as “national-origin harassment” of an Iranian employee who saw the pictures. 33

In another case, the EEOC concluded that an employer had racially harassed a Japanese-American employee by:

  1. creating an ad campaign that used images of samurai, kabuki, and sumo wrestling to refer to its Japanese competition
  2. referring to the competition in internal memos and meetings using terms such as “Jap” and “slant-eyed.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Religious Speech Harassment

Feb 22

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Religious Speech

If some complainants make these claims, some fact-finders may well agree.  A state court has in fact found that it was religious harassment for an employer to put religious articles in its employee newsletter and Christian-themed verses on its paychecks. 26

The EEOC likewise found that a claim that an employer “permitted the daily broadcast of prayers over the public address system” over the span of a year was “sufficient to allege the existence of a hostile working environment predicated on religious discrimination.” 27 A recent article by two employment lawyers gives “repeated, unwanted ‘preaching´ episodes [by a fundamentalist Christian employee] that offend coworkers and adversely affect their working conditions” as a “bright-line example” of actionable harassment; an employer in such a situation would be “well advised to take swift remedial action.” 28

Read the rest of this entry »

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