Don’t think for one moment that your company can get away with same-gender harassment. It can be just as costly as heterosexual harassment.
A bridge repairman who was flashed and taunted by his male supervisor for seeming femine was awarded $451,000 by a New Orleans jury in March.
The EEOC represented Kerry Woods, a 33-year-old ironworker assigned to post-Katrina bridge repair in his harassment suit against Boh Brothers, a major construction contractor that operates in the New Orleans and Gulf South regions.
Here’s an excerpt from the EEOC’s news release on the case:
“The EEOC’s lawsuit charged that a superintendent harassed and taunted Woods, who worked for the company as an ironworker, by engaging in verbal abuse and taunting gestures of a sexual nature, and by exposing himself. The harassment took place on the I-10 Twin Span project over Lake Pontchartrain between Slidell and New Orleans, La. The EEOC presented evidence at trial that Woods’s supervisor harassed him because he thought he was feminine and did not conform to the supervisor’s gender stereotypes of a typical “rough ironworker.”
The EEOC’s lawsuit further claimed that the company retaliated against Woods after he reported the superintendent’s harassment. Woods was transferred to another location, where he was paid less, and then “laid off,” supposedly because there was less work available at the new location.”
“All workers, male and female, are entitled to earn a living free from harassment based on sex or sex stereotypes,” said EEOC General Counsel P. David Lopez. “The jury’s verdict signals to employers the importance of having robust sexual harassment policies and training in place, including in predominantly male workplaces.”
The EEOC established that Boh Brothers had no policy that defined or specifically prohibited sexual harassment. The superintendent testified that before this lawsuit, he had never received training on sexual harassment.
The jury found against the EEOC on its retaliation claim. This should be small comfort to the company, however, as it got socked big-time for the underlying harassment–a fate it and you can avoid with pro-active policies and training.
“All workers, male and female, are entitled to earn a living free from harassment based on sex or sex stereotypes.”
Why not just drop the “based on” language? Are employers allowed to harass people based on their political views?
And why did they add “sex stereotypes”? It’s against the law to discriminate on the basis of sex. Has EEOC decided to expand this (on their own authority?) to “sex stereotypes”?