Women looking for careers in the jewelry business might want to think twice before taking a job at Sterling Jewelers.
Hundreds of former employees of Sterling are alleging that the company’s chief executive and other company leaders presided over a corporate culture that fostered rampant sexual harassment and discrimination.
The allegations surfaced in documents filed in a massive 69,000-member class action arbitration against the company. The documents were made available last week to the Washington Post.
According to the filings, female employees at the company throughout the late 1990s and 2000s were routinely groped, demeaned and urged to sexually cater to their bosses to say employed.
In Sterling’s defense, experts testified during the arbitration that the company “devotes adequate resources to manage complaints of unwanted sex-related behavior.”
Some of the women have also accused the company of wage violations, paying women less than men and passing over the women for promotion instead promoting less-experienced men.
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