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2005-07-03 Business
Harassment
at work Young employees vulnerable, should know their rights By Heather Barr THE NEWS-TIMES
In her mid-20s, Melanie Chalwell worked
for a boss who was constantly hitting on her. Whenever she talked to
him, he tried to brush up against her.
He asked Chalwell to go to his house and other places with him. At
the time she thought it was funny and liked the attention.
But the
Many times, young people
can become targets of harassment at work. Sometimes some older superiors
may see them as vulnerable because of their inexperience.
"When you are younger
you desperately want to keep this form of independence (employment),
and you tend to absorb the abuse," says Stephen L. Cuyjet
Jr., an investigator for the
That's why Cuyjet, EEOC lawyers and other staff visit schools across
the nation. They want the youngest generation of workers to know the
EEOC is there to help if they have harassment and discrimination problems
on the job.
In September 2004, the
EEOC announced its Youth@Work Initiative
to promote equal employment opportunities for the next generation
of workers. The initiative provides a national outreach and education
campaign to educate young workers about their workplace rights and
responsibilities.
"They don't know
they have the right to address it," Cuyjet
says, of some young people who have been harassed.
Cuyjet says young people should
first tell the person who is causing the problem to stop. If that
fails, they should talk to their bosses and consult company harassment
policies. But if that fails or they are not sure what to do, they
can contact the EEOC.
Last summer, 21.4 million
people from ages 16 to 24 held jobs in the
The EEOC has been traveling
to schools, talking to youths about harassment and what to do if they're
a victim. They haven't been to
Charles Brown, who is
assigned to the EEOC's Philadelphia office,
has told students that some tensions in the workplace are inevitable.
"When there are boys
and when there are girls, when there are men and when there are women,
people are going to hit people up," Brown says. "Is it illegal
to hit on someone? No, it's not.
"If someone is hitting
on you and you don't like it, and you tell the boss and he doesn't
do something about it, that's when it's illegal. If someone is hitting
on you and you like it, just keep it to yourself," he says to
students.
It is not uncommon for
attorney Joseph Maya, of Maya & Associates P.C. LLC, to see a
variety of harassment cases a week that deal with young people as
the victims. The firm has offices in
Some are sexual harassment
cases, others are harassment cases involving
a person's sexual orientation or a disability — from being diabetic
to being obese.
Sometimes when a person
is hired they do not expose certain aspects to their employer, says
Maya, of the
Employers who are unsure
about a person because of their condition may try to push the person
out, with tactics such as making their job difficult, rather than
risk getting rid of the employee and being faced with a lawsuit.
Often sexual harassment
cases happen when a superior harasses a subordinate, says Maya. The
superior knows the subordinate may be inexperienced in the work force
and not know what is appropriate work conduct.
Young people view social
norms in different ways. Some young people might think it is OK to
discuss sex and curse at work because they do it normally, while older
people realize it is not acceptable, says Maya.
"In the workplace
it is not acceptable under any circumstances," says Maya.
His firm handled a case
where an 18-year-old woman was working at the
Maya says another case
involved a woman in her early 20s, just out of college, who worked
for a business in
She didn't go along with
the sexual advances and little by little he kept piling on more work.
Eventually he fired her, saying she was incompetent.
The firm has also dealt
with harassment against men. One man in his mid-20s, attending college
at the time, was sexually harassed by his female boss. She constantly
told him about her divorce and how she had not had sex in so long,
says Maya.
She told him she thought
about him a lot and asked him to come over.
The man didn't want to
get involved and did not respond to her advances. Soon the woman started
to criticize his work, forcing him to resign.
Chalwell has a friend who was
sexually harassed when she was in her 20s. It occurred while she was
working in a supermarket in
She became uncomfortable
with the situation and refused his advances. Her boss started cutting
her hours and talking rudely about her to other employees.
She then was suspended
and hired a lawyer to help her get her job back. She got the job back,
but no one believed her about what had happened.
Finally wanting to prove
that her boss in fact was acting inappropriately, she confronted him
and secretly taped his response, later using it against him. The grocery
chain where the boss was working settled out of court with her for
about $90,000.
"She did what she
had to do," says Chalwell, of her friend
pressing charges. "She shouldn't have had to deal with it."
Maya wants all victims
to realize this: Any individual who feels he or she is potentially
a victim of harassment should contact the
If a person does not want
to do that, he or she should talk to someone such as a parent, teacher
or someone trusted.
Maya, who helped draft
New York City's Human Rights law in the early 1990s, protecting employees
in the workplace from discrimination, wants people to know they should
not be afraid to make complaints and complaints should be taken seriously.
He adds that 99 percent of lawyers who deal with harassment cases
will give a free consultation. To contact the
— Knight Ridder Newspapers contributed to this story. Contact Heather Barr at hbarr@newstimes.com
or at (203) 731-3331. |
