SUNDAY ISSUE: Sexual harassment at work gets weirder, scarier

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August 28, 2010

By Susan Antilla BLOOMBERG NEWS The Meadville Tribune Sat Aug 28, 2010, 11:36 PM EDT

NEW YORK — NEW YORK — Not that I think it’s weird that a brokerage firm chief executive would pin a female clerk on the floor by putting his shoe on her breast (the right one, if you must know), or that some insurance company guy in Fullerton, Calif., would put a sample of his semen in a female colleague’s water bottle. Twice.

But it did get my attention when I started leafing through this year’s press releases from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and found a case where a supervisor allegedly said that women should outfit themselves in Vaseline, and nothing else; one where a manager in human resources (yes, in human resources) allegedly inquired as to the color of an assistant’s panties; and a case against a company president who the EEOC says pulled a subordinate’s pants down in front of her coworkers.

Smart boss, that pull-the-pants-down guy. He settled with the EEOC for $21,500 and a promise to train employees on sexual harassment law. I hope he’s in the room when training starts.

Though breast-grabbing, bottom-pinching and other workplace humiliations have declined in the past decade, that probably offers little comfort to the sewing machine operator who stood bottomless in front of coworkers in Crowell, Texas, after the boss removed her pants. A recent rash of weird harassment stories is a reminder that while fewer workers are going to the EEOC with harassment complaints (12,696 last year, down from 15,222 a decade ago), there is still a lot of abuse going on.

Male managers often grouse about seminars where they are taught about the impropriety of things like putting your foot on someone’s breast. The sessions, though, are actually part of a package of steps that companies can take to avoid liability when managers screw up.

For the past decade, U.S. companies have benefited from changes in the law that put the onus on victims to use corporate grievance programs, or lose in court. Companies that train employees about harassment and set up systems to assist the harassed can get off scot free if victims don’t look for help from the company.

Harassment cases have declined as a result, said New York employment lawyer Kathleen Peratis. “Not because companies give a damn about actually fixing the core problem, which is a power relationship issue,” she says, “but because they know the liability can be so great, and now the law gives them a fix.”

Considering some of the noteworthy cases of 2010, one might wonder if all of that training is taking. “About five years ago, we noticed a trend of much more violence, assaults, rapes and oral copulation on a much more severe level,” Anna Parks, regional attorney at the EEOC’s Los Angeles district office, said.

Don’t let those declining complaint numbers fool you. Sexual harassment is still big business, and retaliation figures are at record levels. The difference is that sexual harassment has gotten weirder and scarier.

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SUNDAY ISSUE: Sexual harassment at work gets weirder, scarier

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