sexual harassment - NCBarBlog

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently released preliminary figures on sexual harassment activity for Fiscal Year 2018, which ended September 30. The EEOC’s figures indicate an increase in sexual harassment charges and EEOC lawsuits, and a dramatic increase in the amount paid to settle sexual harassment charges. Then, last week, the Trump Administration issued its regulatory agenda for Fall 2018, which contains a number of labor and employment-related matters.

EEOC #MeToo uptick

The following are highlights of the EEOC’s recently released preliminary numbers on sexual harassment for Fiscal Year 2018:

Damned If You Do: Supervisors Could Be At Risk For Reporting Sexual Harassment

Labor & Employment Law

By Michael A. Kornbluth and Joseph E. Hjelt

On June 7, 2017, Judges Traxler, Motz and Agee on the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision which could make employees think twice before they report other individuals’ complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace. The facts of the case, Villa v. CavaMezze Grill, LLC, No. 15-2543, 2017 WL 2453254 (4^th Cir. Jun. 7, 2017), are alleged as follows:

In October of 2013, Judy Bonilla, a former employee at Cava Mezze Grill in Merrifield, Va., told Patricia Villa, a low-level manager at Cava Mezze, that the restaurant’s General Manager had offered her a raise in exchange for sex. Villa then approached Rob Gresham, the restaurant chain’s Director of Operations, to report the conversation with Bonilla and convey her suspicions that the same quid pro quo offer had been made to another former employee. Gresham is close friends with the General Manager who was accused of sexual harassment. In investigating Villa’s report, Gresham interviewed Bonilla and the other individual Villa suspected had been offered a raise in exchange for sex. Sergio Valdiva, Area Manager, accompanied Gresham in the interview with Bonilla to serve as a translator. In their interviews with Gresham and Valdiva, both employees denied the allegations and denied having ever said anything to Villa. At the close of the investigation, Gresham fired Villa, telling her that he concluded that she fabricated the story.

Who Needs Halloween? Sexual Harassment and Election Season

By Sabrina Presnell Rockoff

I come to you this beautiful October day with three scary topics you should likely avoid at any dinner party. However, as an employment lawyer and breast cancer survivor, I’m going to tackle all of them: Politics, sexual harassment and cancer. I’ll start with the last topic first. October is breast cancer awareness month. As a survivor of stage 1 breast cancer, I’m living proof that early detection saves lives. So if you or your loved one has been putting off a mammogram or checking something that seems worrisome, STOP! Make an appointment today. It matters – a lot.

Now, on to the other two … This election is testing many of the fundamental ideas we all believe in as Americans: democracy, patriotism, equal rights and freedom of speech. Keeping our opinions to ourselves this election season has become increasingly difficult. Without offering my own opinion on the candidates, one thing is very clear: sexual harassment is front and center in this election in a way it has not been since the early 1990s. And history shows us that when sexual harassment is at the forefront of political discussion, we all had best take note. The EEOC reported that charges filed alleging sexual harassment increased by over 60 percent the year following the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. While I would argue, based on my own experience, that companies are now in a much better position to address sexual harassment concerns and claims than they were 10 or 20 years ago, based on the current conversations being had on any cable news show, not all companies, even large, seemingly savvy companies, are doing it well. You can find the most recent data regarding EEOC charges related to sex harassment here: https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/sexual_harassment_new.cfm