Business Law
More Men Filing Sexual Harassment Charges
It's no joke, and employers risk costly claims if they treat it as one.
By Martha Lynn Craver, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter
September 30, 2010
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More men are filing charges of sexual harassment in the workplace, a trend that’s likely to grow as more women assume managerial positions that involve supervising men. Also contributing to the rise is the fact that it’s more socially acceptable today for a man to file sexual harassment charges, says Martha Zackin, a Boston attorney with Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo P.C.
Last fiscal year, men filed 2,031 sexual harassment cases -- about 16% of the total -- brought before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, compared with just 9% in 1992. Total payouts to men totaled $5.4 million in fiscal 2009.
In one of the costliest cases, national home improvement retailer Lowe’s paid $1.72 million to three employees -- two men and one woman. The harassment went on for six months and included physical and verbal abuse. Not only did Lowe’s fail to take remedial action, but the workers were fired.
In another case, Regal Entertainment Group, a national movie theater chain, paid $175,000 to settle a sexual harassment complaint made by a male employee. The EEOC charged that the employee was subjected to a sexually hostile workplace because of a female coworker who repeatedly grabbed his crotch. The female general manager failed to take adequate steps to stop or prevent the harassment and instead took retaliatory action against the harassed worker.
Employers need to treat sexual harassment complaints equally and seriously, regardless of whether the complainant is Jane Doe or John Doe. “Employers must take all charges seriously and not treat someone poorly because he made a good faith complaint,” says Zackin.
Supervisors, and especially new managers, should receive intensive training in what constitutes sexual harassment and how to keep it out of the workplace. “If managers don’t realize their behavior is creating a hostile work environment, they’ll continue to engage in that behavior,” says Rae Vann, general counsel at the Equal Employment Advisory Council.
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Reader Comments (3)
Posted by: BJ at 09/30/2010 05:20:01 PM
The NFL players should start filing some of these until the Press gets out of their locker room!
Posted by: Chester at 10/01/2010 02:56:35 AM
RE: More Men Filing Sexual Harassment Charges The politically correct equal treatment of men and women, has reached a comic level. For example, the other day, a female teacher was sentenced because she was intimate with her 16 year old male student. Ask any red-blooded 16 year old boy – most of them would love to be in the shoes of the “victim”.
Posted by: Elvis at 10/04/2010 10:52:20 PM
Corporate employees have been trained to tedium about sexual harrassment over the past decade. Rather than recommend even more training to the beaten masses perhaps disciplining the few offenders would be a better approach. Kiplinger, excuse me for telling the truth but your writing staff has become completely out of touch with reality in recent years. Good luck with that.