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What would you do if your manager said to you, “I want to make a porn video with you,” and then observing a pregnant customer said, "She must be really horny. My wife was always horny. I am surprised my kids don't have problems with all the times we've had sex."
When Michelle Gydosh's manager made those comments she submitted six complaints within corporate channels before turning to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to file a sexual harassment claim.
Recently, Ruby Tuesday agreed to pay Gydosh and five other female employees a total of $255,000, with Gydosh winning over $100,000. While Ruby Tuesday is denying liability, it says it agreed to settle the lawsuit "to resolve the claims and save the time and costs of a lengthy trial."
The decision to look the other way is costing the company a great deal more than $255,000. Its corporate name has been splashed all over the media as the poster child for corporations that ignore blatant sexual harassment charges.
What Ruby Tuesday is probably wishing is that it had paid attention to Gydosh when she brought her charges of sexual harassment against her manager. As it turns out, the manager, Christopher Mendoza, is no stranger to sexual harassment charges.
In a previous job a hostess filed a sexual harassment claim against Mendoza accusing him of following her around with a vibrating sex toy in his pocket, buzzing his genitals and singing to himself.
Only the team at Ruby Tuesday can explain why they did nothing about these claims. Had they done the right thing, none of us would know what a creep Mendoza is and how unresponsive Ruby Tuesday was in providing a safe working environment.
Since the majority of women who experience sexual harassment never file a complaint, Ruby Tuesday may have felt secure that once Gydosh quit her job, that would be the end of the problem. They had good reason to not worry about an EEOC lawsuit.
Under the Bush Administration the number of lawsuits filed by the EEOC declined dramatically despite the fact the number of people asking the EEOC for help increased.
Writing for the Martindale-Hubbell law firm, Kathleen Biggs Wright says EE0C lawsuits dropped from 421 cases in 2004 to just 325 cases in 2008. What Ruby Tuesday probably didn't calculate is that there is a new attitude at the EEOC and new money-- Congress recently increased their budget by $15 million and the Obama administration has requested a $40 million increase in FY 2010. That money is targeted to aggressively pursue discrimination cases and since the majority of the claims center around sexual harassment that means there will be an uptick in EEOC sexual discrimination cases.
In September the agency filed 90 cases. Just; last week the agency announced 45 new lawsuits. In analyzing the new cases, Kathleen Wright says,
The EEOC has taken a renewed interest in pregnancy discrimination cases. Such cases are being enforced under either Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act or the ADA (for pregnancy-related disabilities).
Sexual harassment in the workplace represents a significant portion of the recently filed suits, but especially noteworthy are the cases involving sexual harassment against young people. All employers, but especially those which employ young people, should be aggressive in responding to allegations of sexual harassment.
A few of the women in the Ruby Tuesday case were teenagers. The message to employers is clear: get your act together because there is a new EEOC that has the money and desire to enforce the law. In 2008, discrimination claims jumped 28%. Statistics are not available for 2009.
Recently, the EEOC held meetings a series of meetings with business owners and management lawyers (the folks who represent the employer in these lawsuits). These attorneys say the fear of layoffs is causing a significant increase in discrimination claims. From their perspective, many of these lawsuits are frivolous.
Management-side lawyers say it’s not just the rise in complaints that worries them. They see a rise in current employees filing EEOC complaints in hopes of protecting themselves in the event of layoffs. Chuck Baldwin, a partner in the Indianapolis office of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, explained the rationale: “If I’m causing a fuss about something, you won’t pick me to lay off…and, if I am let go, then I’ll claim retaliation.”
It's been 11 years since the Supreme Court ruled that businesses could be liable if sexual harassment occurred in the workplace.
