Workplace Harrasment 101

Good afternoon everybody good to see you good to see. We're gonna go through a couple of different topics today as we're doing this if you have a question let me know we're gonna have some things that we're going to have some interaction about but just if there's something I say that doesn't make any sense which is highly likely uh just to raise your hand and i'll be glad to try to clear it up so if you have any questions just shout out. Okay. I'm with the equal employment opportunity commission and i'm here to help but always last and I said we're the key federal agency responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against the job applicant or an employee because of the person's race color religion sex which includes pregnancy transgender status and sexual orientation. National origin age if you're forty years of age or older disability or genetic information. The laws applied to all types of work situations including hiring firing promotions harassment training wages and benefits. What's our mission to promote equal opportunity employment through first of all outreaching education problems like we're doing today we speak to a lot of employers we speak to a lot of employer groups we speak to schools we speak to variety of different organizations we had a program last week at the national civil rights museum and memphis had a really great crowd over there we've tried to do as much outreach as we can to let people know about the laws that we enforce and their rights under those laws secondly we do compliance and or voluntary settlement. Yeah. Ideally if we find a violation or something even looks like a valuation our preferences to try to enter into a cell if in before I go further to that we have a voluntary mediation if someone files a charge of discrimination with our agency we have voluntary mediation which means the employee and the company have to agree that we have a very successful mediation program in our in our district and we've had some really good results with their if somebody has an employment discrimination complaint if they're going to take it further through the process and if they're interested in litigation later you will not get to trial in the united states of american US district court these days without a settlement conference. So we would encourage me to try to settle it on the front instead of waiting a year year and a half maybe two years into litigation to look at selling in a lot of times it's not easier to settle a few weeks or maybe a couple of months after the alleged actual discrimination. Okay if we're not able to settle we also engage in the vigorous and forcement of the federal civil rights employment laws through administrative in judicial actions. We're gonna talk about that some more. Authority and roll the esc has the authority to investigate charges the discrimination against employers who were covered by the laws reinforce our role in investigation is too fairly inaccurately assessed the allegations in the charge and then make a finding if we find the discrimination is occurred again we'll try to settle the charge. Even if we've conducted the investigation and we find that the laws been violated we're still required by statue to try to settle it. If we are not successful in doing that we have the authority to follow to protect the rights of individuals and the interest of the public we do not however file lawsuits in all cases where we find discrimination we do is not capable of doing that because of resources. Now there's a couple of exceptions to their. We conduct investigations against state local governments like the state arkansas but we will not far suit under most of our statutes against the state government or local government we can't under total seven we can under the ada we can't under jeana if we found a violation when I am they unable to settle it. We would forward it for review for litigation by the civil rights division of the US department of justice. And we can bring litigation to get state local governments under the age. Okay. We'll talk about the laws reforce little bit. The. The esim was created by the passage of the civil route section ninety sixty four. We enforce the employment provisions which are also known as title seven. We enforce the equal pay act of ninety sixty three or the epa they'll all that was sand into law by president kennedy. At the time it was signed into all women on average made fifty six cents for every dollar that a man made. And the current point are estimate is. Based on information from the bureau of labor statistics and other sources that women are currently on average making eighty four cents for every dollar a man bags that's better but not where we need to be so we're all working on there. The next is the age discrimination and employment act of nineteen sixty seven which prohibits discrimination against individuals who are forty years of age we enforce total one in five of the american disabilities act and the amendments act of two thousand eight. We also enforced section five or one and five or three of the rehabilitation act which prohibits discrimination based on disability. I guess federal contractors. Now enforce the prenacy discrimination act of nineteen seventy eight that is an amendment to total seven prior to their premium see was not covered by total sim now our newest law which came to effect in june is the pregnant workers fairness it is different from the predicted discrimination act of ninety seventy eight the pregnant workers fairness actor the p w f a requires reasonable accommodation for pregnant individuals. And that's something that was not required under the premise to discrimination act of seventy eight. We also force total sim and parmy title too of the genetic information on discrimination act of two thousand and seven is jeana. And we force the little led better fair pay act of two thousand. And I want to touch just briefly on the little lilly led better fair pay act. Bluely led better work at a production facility for good year what she found during her decades of working there she was trading men. That would be promoted over her and during her employment there she found that man who had been there less time doing the same job she was doing we're being paid more. Now what she found a complaint with the the state she was in you had three hundred days to file your charge discriminate. And what she was allerging is that every paycheck that she got was a separate and distinct violation of total seven every check that reflected an inequity based on her gender was a separate act. That case when all the way to these us supreme court the US supreme court disagreed. And said once she found out about the difference to pay that's one her three hundred day time period follow complaints started. Us congress in an interesting move over charing the supreme court. They passed the lilly led better fair pay act of two thousand nine which said exactly that that each bolation each paycheck that is inequitable each one that is a violation of a title seven creates the beginning of the period to follow charge all over again now while we're on time periods will talk about that a little bit most of the states in the united states you have three hundred days to follow charge a discrimination with. Not true and arkansas in arkansas you only get a hundred and eighty days why is that. You get that because the other states have what's known as a feeber or a fair employment practice agency they have state laws prohibiting discrimination in they have a state agency that is funded to do that that allows them through total settlement for the state to get the arguably the first shot at the investigation which adds additional time and we have water known work sharing agreements with the state agencies. Arkansas has the arkansas civil rights act which is great but there is no there's no state enforcement of it so that extra time doesn't kick in so there's four states currently. That you have to file a charge the hundred and eighty days and hundred and eighty days goes pretty quick. Because if as you were if you lose your job and you believe you've been discriminated against the first thought is not always old g I need to go see bill down at the end of the office you've done that cover in the rent you think we're looking for other jobs you may be pursuing an unemployment compensation in other avenues so a hundred and eighty days runs pretty quickly. To illustrate the point. If you are working in texarkana arkansas. At always put myself into this bills burger joint. And your sister works at bills burger joint twenty feet away in takes are canada texas and your boss objected to sexual harassment by the same manager same type of conduct your sister would have three hundred days to file in texas you would only have a hundred and eighty days to file in arkansas. So not great but that that's where we are now. Okay. Employer obligations to make the workplace free of unlawful discrimination harassment retaliation promptly and confidentially investigate complaints with discrimination harassment in retaliation and we're discrimination in harassment retaliation may have occurred take prompt and appropriate remedial action I discipline come is right with the offence. Prompt means prompt who means now. If someone goes to their employer and says i've been subjected harassment because of my race the employer needs to begin and investigation as soon as they possibly can what we've seen in a lot of cases is things don't always come at convenient times it may be christmas eve when the person makes the complaint and everybody is taken off a week or two. That's not the situation you want employers have to take a quick and action as they can when you read the cases on this the employer that waits weeks or even months to take corrective action is going to be in trouble. It may not be that you can figure out what's going on in a matter of hours or matter days which you can take action to protect the employee it may be that you need to separate the alleged harasser from that employee or even other employees there may be some other action that you need to take. And then you can investigate the what you need to do and then take appropriate action down the road. But these are not things that need to be put off. Who is covered private employers educational institutions labor organizations joint labor management apprenticeship and training committees tattle seven and the eighty a. Under both of those you get to join labor management apprenticeship employment agency serving covered employers and staying local governments. We are seeing more and more the use of staffing agencies to provide employees. There were a lot of situations where you may have a workplace with multiple staffing agencies putting people into a warehouse facility for instance and that's one of the things that comes up frequently with the commission. Is some of the practices that are used by employment agencies they're hiring practices whether or not they're using AR where they're not they're doing electronic applications whether the doing video interviews things that may be. May have a adverse impact on individuals based on either one of the one of the protected basis that we enforce. So we're seen more and more than. Who's protected and employee a temporary employee a job applicant a former employee. And also a nine us citizen regardless of the immigration status. How do you cover a former employee let's say when you're at employee number employer number one you say at hey look I think you did not promote me because I am mail. And i'm filing a charge for the sea and in the middle of this process you'll start looking for another job as you are applying it employer number two they call employer number one and say well what kind of employee is bill and they said well he really did a great job he is great guide in a wonderful job right up until he filed that charge with the sea. So a watch out for him. So even though you may not still be employed the employer can take an adverse action they can retaliate against you for some action that you took and that's that's not in and common complaint the last one we are not concerned with immigration status of individuals if somebody comes in and says they're during my employment I was subjected to sexual harassment at a restaurant where I worked we're going to investigate the claim. We're not going to inquire into their immigration status because we don't want the employer to get a windfall we have employers and we've had this case before we had one out of the state of tennessee. Where employer. Employed a number of individuals who were not documented and as soon as one of them subject submitted a complaint and said I don't like the way i'm being treated I don't like the way i'm being paid they contacted the local police. Said hey we have all these illegal workers here come help us so we don't want the employer to be able to gauge an illegal conduct harassment paying people differently given people in appropriate terms and conditions of employment and then the individual not be able to recover because of their immigration starts. Okay whole bunch of stuff that goes on at work is going to come under examples of discrimination hiring a firing wages promotion and emotion harassment. Kind of a catch all different terms and conditions I e job assignments benefit benefits leave training of failure to accommodate for disability in religion. What we found in a lot of situations that now the training can end up being pretty significant. We've had some employers that have favoured males in terms of training. When they needed and acting supervisor they favored males so when the promotional opportunity comes up monts or maybe even years later and females applied they can say well you don't have the training. Bills act it is an acting supervisor he's hit all the spots in terms of training so the act of discrimination began. Several minutes before the denial promotion it was the denial of the of the training it was that they denial of the being able to act as a supervisor that type of assignment. Got hassle pictures we have a picture of the whole bunch of stuff we're going to talk about race national origin color sex. And religion. Title seven and so we're outside of sixty four is a mandate prohibits discrimination on the basis of race. Color sex religion and national organ. Color is not the same as race for purposes of title server frequently people will allege that they will say that i've been denied promotion because of race and color what color is is literally complexion. An example is a case that we had out of atlanta georgia and and applebees there was a manager who was afraid american who was very dark complex and he harassed a employee who was african american who was very light complex so it wasn't based on individuals gender was it based on the individuals race it was base literally on their complexion. We don't get a lot of charges that allege just color but we we do get some. And national origin is not just the the country that you the employer from. It's also your heritage where your maybe your parents are grandparents are from. It also can include other cultural characteristics for instance close to arkansas louisiana if you're occasional there can be a national organ claim if you believe you weren't promoted because your cage. And even though there men people who who were occasioned have been in the united states for hundreds of years. Okay. All right we're gonna have a little bit of discussion a body want to have a post lunch discussion. Yeah. It's always fun to do training right everyone. This is a question. How do we show respect in the workpla. I heard about numerous. What it's okay. What do we think how do we shall respect in the workplace. I'm sorry greeting each other it's very good. And a beginning at the beginning how you doing. Being kind. That covers a host of things that's pretty good. Being consider it. Any other thoughts how how to take those two points how how do you demonstrate or how to how would you show people. Consideration or how do you show people that you're being card. At what is that translated to. The. I like the cleaning up after yourself that's pretty good we're getting a new refrigerator our office we've had the same wine since the beginning of time it's one of those you open up but a big block guys into but. But their stuff that's been in there for decades in we sent an email saying hey everybody we're going to new refrigerator clean up get your stuff and you would have thought we were making a pretty big demand so yeah they cleaning up after each other. Very important that clean about it yourself very important. Anything else come tomorrow. That's great. Thank you for that gratitude's important. It is it does it take very long time. Since the body quick emails and thanks appreciate all your work and are you busy which you helped me out. It goes along away a lot of this this is stuff that they told us when we were little. Because each other will be consider it. We've done it this earlier this morning in another session as to train attorneys frequently. In our attorneys in our investigators do different jobs that work together a lot but their jobs are very different their demands on their time we're very different. And I had some of the attorneys who sometimes then even met one of the universities and they needed something that they'd say hi I need this like now right now. They never talked to them before. And I said that's not how we're going to do this said you need to interact with these folks you do go in and introduce yourself. He need to talk to them you need to say good morning you need to just get to know. Where are. How you think the hogs are going to this year. This is a big discussion but anyone I see you get a picture of his extra grain kids that we bought your grandkids so you got a picture of your cat there which gets name. I got a call there in launch from a daughter she said it was an emergency said all goodness I dropped everything returned the car she's getting the kid so that was an apartment so. But anyway just having a good working relationship with people talking about things other than work in deadlines in that type of thing so lot a lot of things that come up. Okay. And i'm going to ask you some questions unless you three questions and I don't want you to respond I just want you to think about what you're response would be. The first one is do you believe your work matters. Do you believe that your work matters. Second question. Do you believe that what you do every day makes a difference in some way. Do you believe. That what you do every day makes a difference in some way. And the third one if you disappear tomorrow would it make a difference. The. If you disappeared tomorrow would make a difference. Now just think about how many those you would answer yes to in how many you manage or notice. And there was a studied on. What using these questions and the target was if your entire work force would answer yes seventy five percent of the time. You're in a good spot. If it's greater than that so much the better if it's less than that. They're probably isn't work. Which is think about that. What do you think you would answer to those questions and what do you think. Your colleagues were. Okay. We talk a little bit about respect in the workplace employees who feel respected or more satisfied with their work loyal to their employer co operative with their colleagues creative and productive the quote is respect is like air as long as it is present nobody thanks about it but if you take it away it's all people can think about. And a lot of things that are communicated or similar to the things that we've talked about if people give you what we refer to is cus. And cues can be a tool that you use when you're talking to somebody how you react to them if you're open to listening to them are you distracted when you listen into the home are you on your phone. When they're trying to talk to you about something. Withholding this top of you with holding post of cues like looking at people being open to discussion with them can end up being in a very negative thing in the workplace. And can lead to conflict in the workplace. Now you can't have situations where people are just having a bad day. Occasional rudeness. Somebody not wanting to talk to you that day because they've got a deadline because they're not feeling well because they just got a bad call from home something they are distracted by that's going to happen. But if that continues over time that can end up being can end up in the point where it can be rather talks. Okay. We're gonna talk a little bit about workplace bulling. You can be to find as the repeated malicious health endangering this treatment of one employee by one or more employees. According to a store from the associated press twenty nine percent of all us managers and employees deal with workplace bullies a society for human resource management white paper reports that out of six one out of six individuals report being bullied at some time at work during their careers. Bulling the workplace is three times as prevalent as illegal discrimination and occurs at least sixteen hundred times as often as workplace violence. And again abusive behavior takes a lot of different forms it isn't always somebody shouting it in somebody being loud or throwing things it can be very subtle it could be very quiet. This kind of abuse of behavior is known as relational aggression and because it happens out of sight were hand closed doors it's it can be very hard to approve. Groups can mob up and bully some by astrosizing them are doing things to undermine them. And one of the ways this is done frequently as the social media social media has expanded the types of use of behavior that can happen in the workplace as people can attack others on facebook snapchair instagram. Social media is particularly potent weapon because the record of behavior never goes away. And one of the things the that we talk about when we're doing training is if it's if something is not okay to say to an individual directly when you're looking at him when you're talking to him it's probably not okay to do on social media. And I know a lot of times both through social media and through even text messaging or emailing somebody it can be real easy to get a town to your email or your text or your post. And it may well be something you would not say if you were looking at somebody and you could see how they're responding to what you're saying. So just something that we want to avoid in the workplace. Is that tap a behaviour and social media is great. For all kinds of reasons but it also can be used to be too support bullying you can be and a very abuse of tool. Now when we look at individuals. Who are subject to the workplace bulling a lot of the behaviors include false accusations of mistakes and errors hostile glares and other intimidating non verbal behaviors yelling shouting and screaming exclusion and the silent treatment. Use the put downs insults and excessively harsh harsh criticism and unreasonably heavy work demands. For when we look when we look at situations where individuals have been targeted. We wanted the studies that. Looked at this this problem said the. Gave a breakdown of what happens after an individual. Was objected to bulling in the workplace. The first category the target volunteer the victim the target voluntarily left the job to escape more mistreatment. They were forced to quit when work conditions were deliberately made worse. The employer terminated the target the target transferred to a different child or location with the same employer. The perpetrator was punished. But kept their job the perpetrator was terminated or the perpetrator voluntarily quit. What was found though is that in sixty one percent of the times the person who subjected to the bulling left. In one way or other. So that's definitely not not what you want to see both for the. Moral reasons that people shouldn't be subjected to that but also. You don't want to lose experienced good employees because they're subject to this type of card. If this type of conduct is not started if it's not dealt worth. Abuse of behavior when it's allowed to happen in boldens other individuals. And if it becomes the culture of the organization. Frequently can escalate and go from being something that may not be actionable or may not be illegal but it may escalate to the point where it is the tap a conduct which would be illegal. Okay. You were going to talk about workplace harassment. And this is out of a laundry list of cases and to show you the tap of financial exposure that employers have been subjected to and it's pretty wide range. Car the top one is the most expensive one is at the bottom. The vehicle run community resort. Association. Which had social asthma and attempted rate about manager of female employees. And that was for a class of individuals. What we have found frequently when we're investigating social harassment. Is that there may be a class of people that are have been subjected to the harassment. We investigated. A charge of discrimination out of cabinet several years ago against the local mcdonald's up there we had one young lady who said she was being subjected and young lady by meaning. High school sixteen seventeen years old was being subjected to graphic social arrastment by a manager. As we started the investigation we found out there were nine. Mean subject to the sexual harassment in and I start a very big place i've been there and nine young women all under the age of eighteen being subjected to sexual arrastment. So what point being frequently when we start that investigation it goes from one person to two persons to three persons and sometimes. A light a lot of people. Here's some more examples. First one is save a lot grocery those are pretty popular in tennessee. Sexual harassment of the cash here by a manager. Uh last one is a smoking spirits and farming technology. Such harassment of female workers by supervisor that one was four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And you'll see a lot I think the kroger sexual harassment of team worker by coworker that is forty two thousand five hundred. We just filed a lawsuit in hot springs against the slim chickens and hot springs newers young women being subjected to sexual harassment by male manager so that was we found out about a month ago so this this continues to be. A significant problem in something that we proud to us. That's the people if you weren't in the mathers at all. Okay harassment charges filed with a. Picked out this physical year twenty twenty we had twenty four thousand two hundred twenty one chart is alleging harassment. Um which are foul of the using for that physical year it was thirty six percent of the total remember charges found and for that year we recovered a hundred and thirty seven point three million dollars. Um. Which was done administratively that's pretty litigation okay. We we do calculations on. Percentages of. Comparing the number of charges with the size of population and we have the top ten states for filing sexual assembly charges the first son is alabama the second one is mississippi the third one is georgia the fourth when it's kansas the fifth one is tennessee and the six one is arkansas. So we're in the top team seven is reserved as nevada nine is the district of columbia and ten is. Louisiana. And at this point for sexual aspect charges seventy eight percent or a file but females. How does harassment in the workplace impact individuals victims may lose their sense of security dignity and confidence all employees may be do more alignment. People may start to feel unsafe on the job confidence in the organization may be threatened accused employees myself for loss of reputation credibility or even there even their jobs. What increases is the pressure in anxiety litigation cost. It's unbelievably expensive to defend harassment claims in federal court it's mind boggling in which I caused physical health customer complaints absenteeism turnover revenge wasted time and workers compensation claims what goes down is quality at work amount of cooperation productivity. Loyalty company reputation moral employee engagement the building to me goals and overall bottom lines. Recognizing workplace harassment what is harassment. Harassment is unwelcome behavior directed a member of protected group harassment usually involves a pattern of behavior and it is often blatant but also can be subtle. And it is a form of illegal discrimination. Sexual astronomies of violation of one civil rights individual so the right to work in environment free from discrimination. It's a widespread problem from agricultural fields to wide color jobs it affects both men and women. We have a scenario. The. Bill and diana what do you think bill and diana dating each other in bill is her manager diane decided she doesn't want to continue to date bill and tells him bill tells her that if she does not continue to date him he will move her out of the office and into a plant position. She will then lose her company provide itself on and have to work shift work at lower pay. Day and continues to date bill because she has two small children at home and is afraid he will transfer her. Is this a tangible employment action harassment. Does it matter that she was voluntarily dating here. Do we think we have harassment here. Now it's means. Anybody think we don't. Well she was dating him though is that a problem. This. I'm sorry. No. Yeah some places have rules against. We think it's in terms of her being able to allow harassment that they were formally dating. Get some headshakes now. Now he comes up a lot in I say this a lot where to people meet who they. Bottom folks me. The folks they're dating at work. And sometimes their co workers and then when i'm getting promoted. And they can create all kinds browns. The everything's over everything's okay anybody's in love until everything's not okay. Anybody's not a lot. Thanks app we've had a kind of both ways we've had individuals that were dating then. They'll stick with these names bill is promoted and then coworkers believe the dianese being favoured because she's the girlfriend because she's sleeping with the boss. And so there can be an issue and it has been an issue in a number of cases. Or you can get into this type of situation. So now whether or not they were dating it at some point we've had. A lot of harassers have tried to make an issue of that over the years now when she. No no longer interested in him. He needs to take the head okay. Tangible job action harassment. It can generally be described as a refusal to submit to a supervisor sexual advances which results in a tangible employment action. The job benefited it in an issue must be tangible only a supervisor or manager in direct line of supervision can undertake a tangible job action the thread of the job detriment must be fulfilled the demand for sexual favorites and return for job benefits can be explicit or implicit one instance of this top of a harassment sufficient to cancel to a violation of title seven tangible and job benefits are guaranteed and add based on submission or rejection of the unwelcome conduct. This is when there is something specific that happens to the individual. Because. They don't submit to. The second overturns. Examples can be a significant change in employment status value to hire or fire the individual promote or failure to promote. A demotion reassignment to a less desirable position it may impact the individuals compensation it may affect java silence or change benefits or terms and conditions of employment. What's examples of a couple things it might not be a tangible employment action if there's just a single thread and if it's more in the nature of giving somebody dirty looks or just generally. Something that's expressive but not tangible not more tangible than that. The. The. So we have harassment that involves a tangible employment action do we have harassment. That is what we call hastering hostile environment harassment that's where you have and welcome comma answer conduct focused on an individuals protected status. It can be sex race etc that has the purpose of our fact of unreasonably interfering with the individuals to work performance are causing an intimidating hostage or offensive atmosphere. For sexual **** make it again to be unwelcome sexual advances request for sexual favors other verbal physical or visual conductor sexual nature that creates a hostile environment for a person of either get. Harasser can be a coworker third party or supervisor the conduct must be unwelcome to the victim the conduct must be either severe or provisive and nature. The victim subjectively fills the conduct as abusive and a reasonable person would find the conduct to be abusive. It does not have to result in a tangible employment action the offended endividual need not be the target of harassment that can be affected by the conduct in the harassing conduct can be outside of work you could happen on a business trip or at a business party. And example we always give is the holiday party where bodies drinking and unfortunately a lot of stuff happens in charges come out of that stuff we want to all be careful with. Okay what are key issues when you're looking at hostile work environment analysis context the supreme court said language is all about context in situations like this role about context context frequency and severity. You look at the reasonable person standard. In a host of work environment's situation you don't have to have a tangible effect on the person's job they don't have to be getting to motor they don't have to be getting fire. And severe psychological harm is not necessary for years after the supreme court decided the merit decision which created so for asthma cases essentially you had circuits around the country that said you have to be able to show some psychological harm to establish this type of case. Years back in a case out of the state of tennessee just a standard day or connor wrote. That that's not true that the protections of total seven kick in short of a nervous breakdown so you don't have to be able to show psychological harm to establish your claim. We talk about the idea of the victim and add the of the harassment the harasser as well as the target maybe mel or female. The target the harassment do not have to be of the opposite circs same sex say for estimate is also a violation of title seven the grassor does not have to be the target supervisor the harasser could be a coworker or a third party such as a customer. We've had a lot of cases over the years where it is a vendor or a customer we've had somebody to go the regularly went into a fair food restaurant made an appropriate social comments to somebody behind the counter. The employee asked for help from the supervisor in the supervisor said. They don't work here where you are me to do you know shake it off your brand. We've had that type of situation. We've also had vendors people that are delivering products people that don't work at the facility. That have made an appropriate comment. One examples that are frequently used is a case out of nashville that evolved a place that did quick all changes. There was a young lady who worked there. She was like the reception as she scheduled when your car was going to get worked on. The delivery person the person that delivered the oil. Made sexual comments to repeatedly she complained or supervisors supervisor fell to take action. So what I do he doesn't work here now my problem. It escalated the country got worse she said announced enough and she left and filed a charge for the years. After she found the charge as the matter went forward. We were able to. Directly speak with the manager. And. The question that we post term is what if the delivery guy every time he came in to deliver reached into the cash registered took out twenty box. What would you do about that. So why cause I call his boss. Okay. Or what if he brought you the wrong counter oil what would you do. I'd happen all the time I call his boss. Oh. Why she backed in your car when he was. What would you do I call us box because oh I see where you're going with this yeah so when he subjects your employee to sexual harassment what could you do because I guess I could have called his boss yeah okay. Good to know. Now there's one of the questions that we're going to talk about that little more. Is the amount of control you have. We've had situations where it was a police officer. Place officer came into a restaurant meeting appropriate comment the manager did not feel comfortable telling the police officer hey don't do that. But as as my former supervisor used to tell me everybody's got a boss. And you can't allow you employee to be treated that way and if you're not comfortable making the comment to the police officer. An employer should make comment to whoever supervisor said individual so. Okay. The complaint don't have to be the person towards home the unwelcome sexual conduct is directed if you have a sexually hosted work environment it may be so offensive that people that aren't even the targets are offended by the content. And one examples we use there is a case we did out of national tennessee like going on a natural state of ashford and anyone. It's beautiful just get better nothing where i'll take nothing international. The. Anyway there was a president of one of the unions there. Had a secretary receptionist that person. And she worked for him for an extended period of time. He summit he subjected members of the union to sexual harassment employees to sexual harassment a young woman who delivered his lunch he grabbed her and harassed her. He never sexually harassed the secretary so just think about this is that the secretary setting where I am now his office is directly behind where they should between those chairs are she's hearing she's seeing she's hearing people screaming she literally sees a young woman running out of the place with food honor because when she tried to deliver his milk shake and food you graphs or so she got a milk shake all over and she screamed. So even though that individual the secretary he never made sexual overturns towards her never made sexual comments to her she still subjected to the hostel worker. And that happens alive when you have a workplace where it's that pervasive where it's that open it impacts a whole bunch of people in once you start conducting an investigation of that and you start talking to people everybody knows about that. So you can't have situations even if you're not subjected to the comments or the groping or the other conduct that we had in that case you could still be a victim of a hostel work environment. And welcome conduct means that the employed in solicitor invite the conduct the employee regarded the conduct is in understand. So the question would be how does the employee view the card. So in terms of the. Unwelcome conduct what is it how do you evaluate it to the victim. Did they solicitor about the conducted the victim conduct regard the conduct as undesirable or they are offensive. You don't always have to say no don't do that. You may not be comfortable saying no not do that if you were a teenager in your boss is thirty five years old you may not be comfortable standing up and saying no don't not do that. They would it would be great if you could but that's not always the case both the harasser and the victims conduct respect of positions in the company and the circumstances surrounding the incident are part of a value waiting whether the conduct is welcome. What are some warning signs. And complain is made that's a big warning sign. The harassers told that the joke of the comment is not appreciated they're asked not to make the comment again there may be a reaction. Facial reaction or people recalling when he says it people put their head down they walk away or they don't laugh. Her answer thanks this is real funny and nobody's laughing so that that should be a signal to. Avoid everybody wants to avoid being harassed or you want to look to see if there is equal initiation in participation between yourself in the person you're interacting with what I want my actions to appear in the company newsletter on the evening news. What I want someone else to act this way towards a person that i'm in a relationship with. Is there equal power between me and the person i'm interact. There's a wide range of things included in an examples of sexual harassment can be fowler of seeing language directed at one gender sexual proposition sexual in your window crew jokes about gender specific trades discussing sexual activities commenting on physical attributes spreading rumours about one sex live. We had a case out of mountain home. We're his production facility mail employees were going around taking pictures of female employees. And they thought oh well this is nice kind of party pics what they were doing with the pictures is they were scanning taking the heads off the photos and putting in my new photos. Which was bad enough then they were posting him online. So you that's it's amazing the the types of. Behavior people will come up with it's pretty extensive so we've come up with some things but there's a. Whole lot of other things. It can be visual displaying social explicit photographs pictures penupse or calendars use of computer games that to pick sexual situations sexual graffiti are sexually offensive drawings pernography in the workplace magazines websites people pulling a porographic sites at work. On their phones social cartoons and welcome personal letters noted signals text sixteen web post use of different types of props. Fiscal acts that can be a variety of things and welcome touching assaults battery rape impeding or blocking movement any physical interference with normal work grouping rubbing massaging etc or brushing up against somebody. One example we had the. Is for the most extreme one i've seen was one that we did on a memphis against targot bell in memphis the manager of a tacobell was a essential predator. He would look at young women there were in line to buy food if you like the way they looked he would all from a job. If you are from a job he would fill out their application for their information in home on the spa. And what he did handed up raping to young. One of the young women became pregnant as a result. And so he was prosecuted by the state of tennessee everyone to prison wow how we got involved is the employer was not cooperate in fact a female manager assisted the male manager and covering up his various inappropriate conduct. And the employer was uncooperative so we found suit against them and we were able to get a recovery for the for the two women so in that situation both the person had committed a criminal act so he was prosecuted with prison and we pursued them because of the total seven violation when we're able to get a monitor reform. So that doesn't happen a lot but it's. It's a pretty extreme. Okay regards got another scenario sergeant greg. Greg is a police sergeant in a small city please force he likes to make crude remarks about the mel police officers genetally and brag about his size he also likes to rough house with them such as slapping him on the rearions of bending them over desk to simulate sex. Is this harassment and even if they are both of the same sex. What are we think. In some yes. Anybody think it's not. Anybody didn't want to raise their hand after lunch. Yeah a lot of that okay. Yes when you see the words rough ours. When employer comes back and says no they were just rough housing. That is never good. They almost always mean something that substance going on is kind of a code word for something going on that shouldn't be going on. Okay. Not everything that happens is offensive parmies not it can be offensive not everything it happens as it is offensive it's necessarily actionable harassment. Examples are simple teasing that based on a protected basis of hand comments manner isolated incidents that are not extremely serious and concentrate relationships between peers. Let's talk about drew the comedian drew is referred to as the company comedian always cracking jokes with his coworkers he has over a thousand one jokes about marriage divorce and attorneys mimi one of drews coworkers is going third of horse she becomes emotionally upset after hearing drew tell yet another of his marriage jokes distributes the drugs conduct constitute unlawful harassment. What are we thinking. I got a not sure it's not bad. Means knows i'm going to not sure yet more knows get a struggle should some of this. No go. Probably not going to be actionable harassment not a great way to treat people at work. Probably more in the. Offensive conduct round but because of the other nature of it. Probably not going to be unlocked or harassment. No ideally he would start doing it. When you look at harassment situations you're going to see these two works a lot severe or perfect. It's determined by nature and frequency conduct is viewed on a continual the employer may be liable for less agreed just come conduct such as jokes in your window etc that is often repeated if it happens every day if it happens all the time. An employer may also be liable for much less frequent agree just conduct or even one agreed is act you don't have to physically attack somebody every day one physical attacked one groping incident one. Something it's more severe doesn't have to happen every day that can happen one time. So if you're talking about a sexual joke. One time thing is probably not going to be actionable if that's it. But if it happens over time you do basically a balance test how pervasive is how common is it if it's something very severe. And a lot of times we'll talk about physical contact with somebody that's severe enough to wear one time me most likely will be in optus they wish to claim. Harassment. We're gonna always look at the totality of the circumstances does it interfere with work performance as a create an intimidating hostel or offensive work environment. Again one time is probably not going to get you there one sexual proposition or one slower it's bad and it shouldn't happen and it should start but it may not be enough to get you to the requisite level and I gave you though some of the examples where one time would be enough okay. Shine. Shawn is african american mail. He works as a mechanic above are to repair shine in his co workers regularly share funny jokes amongst each other one day neck caucasian. There's a joke beginning with you know you're getting if. Shon in a serious time of boys tells nick the joke is offensive nick gets a bit defensive saying he only manages a joke but refrain some doing it again. Is this harassment. Why would they. One app. The. So we don't think it's previous of enough he did at once and he didn't do it again. And. Okay. So yeah looking at the totality of the limited facts we have. At the point he's asked to stop he stops. Alright. Reasonable person standard you look to see whether the conduct is considered harassing and it's judged by subjective and an objective standard for purposes of violation the victim must subjectively view the conductors on welcome. Harassment creating a host environment and a reasonable person in the pictures position must view the conduct a severe or provisive enough to create an objectively hostel or abusive work environment. Again courts the same as the commission are going to look at the totality of the circumstance. Not all her you hear a lot about social harassment and a lot of that I think is press coverage press like the breast selected overseas and I think they should but we don't always get as much coverage on other types of discrimination. So examples that we've had hanging a news in the workplace drawing swastikas making anti semantic slowers. Derogatory comments such as I was listed imitating a person's disability. Are mocking and employees religious practices. The. We had a case recently where employee left a news in the workplace for months. They didn't take it out. And we understand that if they side they may want to photograph it they may want to videotape but they may want to get information to support their investigation but leaving a new sub for from is outrageous and it was in the view of of their employees. That's not how you do it. Now we have another example there was a a. Warehouse facility where someone had written swasticas all over some packages. And an employee was attended by it. And in that situation the employer. Conducted a very thorough investigation they have cameras all over their facility they went back and checked their cameras. And what they were able to stabish was that they shipped things trucks were bringing stuff there they were shipping it out that it was already red nine the defacing the swastikas the other offensive comments were on the packages when they received an assume as soon as they protected the evidence took pictures over everything they walked it out they cleared it out. So that's that's what that's what we want obviously what we want employers to do but the point of this essentially is there's all tabs of different harassment that occurs. You can have six days harassment that's not just like sexual harassment. It can be someone making offensive comments about women for instance we've had a lot of that. Making some negative denigrating comment about women it's not sexual and nature is just attacking women in. Because they're female. Okay. L gbtq harassment denaying employment opportunities are permitting harassment because. And these are some case examples of woman does not dress or talk in affirmative manner according to the employer. A may address is in an infinite manner or enjoys a past time like crocheting that is associated with women a female employee dates women instead of man a male employee plans to marry a man and employee transitions from female to mail or mail to female. The. Other examples are graffiti with sexual explicit words or images being left on person's desk door etc. Sexually derogatory name calling jokes about a person sexual orientation and perceive sex orientation. Violent things me and chased somebody throwing object to somebody receiving intimidating emails based on one social orientation. Race color and national origin harassment. The. Never racial slowers jokes in an offense of a derogatory remarks we talked some about racial offensive symbols graffiti etc for comments focusing on physical features cultural or language characteristic stress etc comments that canot animosity or use a ridiculous person's background or hear it. We have a scenario this one's about my heart hammered works and sales his car leagues regularly make the meaning and stereotypical comments about the middle east remarks range from asking about his magic flying carpet to harsh remarks of any being a terrorist they're also inappropriate offensive remarks about his religion. Mohammed protest but his colleagues continue to engage in this behaviour mohammed resigns from his position. What kind of harassment is th. I'm sorry. Religion. Okay. Any other base as you think. National origin so right we have what we call intersectional religion it can be more than one basis or good because of a combination of bases but I think on the on the limited facts we have here I think we could show national organ. And religion both what responsibilities do we think the coworkers had in this situation. Stop when he asking to stop yeah no means no stop when I ask you to start. Can. One of the things we've done a lot over in the last several years is. Dealing with by standard intervention. And it's similar or to what was done in colleges and universities the see something say something. And encourage individuals in the workplace if they see something to. To speak to say something about it. To talk to the offended people if they're not comfortable without going to HR and talk until about it. Um. I did a training program recently at a facility. In central arkansas. And. I was speaking that they broke it down but people do in different jobs and there was a reduction facility and I spoke with them late in the day her body was tired and not real interested in here in the government got talk about this stuff but I went in and I gave him a scenario honestly. This is this was just the way this workplace was laid out was the actual way out of this workplace there was. Probably fifty males and two females. And just kind of worked out the scenario issues and was a workplace where there was only one female and I said okay what would you do if you had a milk co worker making inappropriate sexual comments to your female co work. What would you do about that. And they said they looked and they looked and they said and they certainly looked and I said in I looked we all said and we looked and we said. And following up at his hand up. Nicer what tell you what I want to I won't tell you. And i'm right until hr said okay what's going to. He said i'd pull the gas at. So don't do that there's now what we do here. You know she's just here trying to learn a living like you are don't do that and I had another guy at the back he slid his armour. He said i'm with him I wouldn't tell you. I said we were stallish noise will tell me. And when do I charge I will you by fired but I telling that's not to kind of place this is when I do that here. And it's these people were incredibly sincere that's impactful. That's how things start that's how culture and workplaces can be positively impacted so. Any. Another scenario. Simon paula good friends and frequently engaged in verbal discussions a better variety of topics during work often times over there morning coffee in the breakfast. It's not unusual to enter the breakroom in her simon or paul and make disparage and comments about others including comments that are racially are sexually offensive one particular morning their co worker randy entered the room and overheard silent and paula talking about a recent new story about a recording of a famous person making racial remarks. Paula and simon continue their discussion which included making additional racially offensive comments. Randy reported the incident to a supervisor but was told that because the comments were not directed to him nothing further could be done. Is this harassment. And do we think randoms the victim here. It could be. Why does it tell us about the workplace that these two people are comfortable having these type of comments in engaging in these type of. Conversation. It's a long way towards creating a house environment it is they had you should not have that comfort level in your place of work talking about that type of stuff is openly as. And what we find out when we investigate cases like this randy is not the only one that's offended by this randy may just be the one that's comfortable coming forward. We found that frequently there we start talking to people we do was called and side investigations we get a charge a discrimination. We started interviewing people to work there. What happened. In. If randy's offended there's probably multiple other people to say you won't believe what these people say. So yeah this is this is something you don't want to see in the workplace. Religious harassment. Offensive remarks about a person's religious belief or practices coercing employees to participate on our participate in religious sectivities verbally harassing. An individual because she or he practices a particular religion. And except the physical reaction the physical one example here is pulling on a muslim woman suggest which is clearly inappropriate okay. This also conclude can include. Harassing somebody because they don't practice religion at all. Total serve and also covers individuals who are not religious whether their atheist diagnostic or just. Don't want to be involved in religion. Moses. Moses works in a manufacturing plant his religion requires him to pray frequently throughout the day and he does this without any adverse impact on his work when he is a prayer his co workers purposely make loud noises to interpret it i'm sorry to interrupt to interrupt his protout large time his coworkers ribbon by saying don't forget to pray before you eat one day the employees are discussing the return of american at all when one as moses who are you're praying for. Do we have a problem here. What's the brown. Do have harassment here. Okay. Anybody think we don't ever ask. By negative severe enough. We have that it. He's praying frequently. And we're. They have limited facts but it sounds like this is something that his co workers seem to be doing. The. Often so they may get us into being prevails. Okay. Yeah. Disability harassment comments about ability to perform. Repeated comments references and concerns related to the health of a disabled person imitating a person's disability comments reflecting resentment of special status of a disabled person and refusal to assist or provide necessary accommodation for a disabled individual this can come up in a variety of ways. What we've had in some situations is an individual who has a disability is provided and accommodation it may be they need additional leave for treatments. It may be that they need special equipment because of their work and that. There may be harassment by co workers because they believe that these individuals are given as mentioned here something like special staff. The. The problem of course for the employer is the employer is required to keep. Medical matters confidential so frequently there's a limited amount of information that the employer can provide to the staff about way in individuals. Is receiving an accommodation or even if individuals receive an accommodation. Age harassment comments about retirement so security pension. Ages cartoons jokes references to a rep comments about building two reform. This one's gonna be interesting because I mean a lot of times people are like i'm about to retire i'm getting close I got a date. I had a calendar hello. Director that had a day calendar but hand him when you went into his dasket so like two hundred and sixty four days that's when he was split and every day he would turn the cube and it was one more day close. So you know you could have fun with it. But you don't want it to turn into something that that's harassing a nature. The. George burns. George anderson is a dispatcher x was the fire department and aged fifty seven they should say george. Anderson george anderson was the oldest employee late last year his direct supervisor began to address and referred to him as poppa burns old man burns father tom as well as as well as other remarks about his age. George did complain about the frequent comments however the remarks continued in effect spread among fellow and higher level managers is this teasing or harassment. Mode folks they cares. Anyway I think it's just teasing. You they can teasing. Okay. You don't think it's severe enough. If I was a we know about myself. It's interesting when you look at the cases. It age is an interesting thing in our circuit where in the eight circuit and they'll they'll do the math they'll be like all it's been three comments over two months and it will be six comments over so it is I mean you're what you're kind of walking alone I mean how much of it is teasing that may not be actionable on how much it gets you to wear it's more like harassment. One of things that are what one exact thing just again we're giving you a limited fact you're getting just a handful of sentences about this but. The fact that it's happening in upper management. That can become some what we're concerned. And just thank you. Looks up and there's a promotional opportunity. And he's thank you may I don't think about a plan for that the wait a minute you know the head had got here was making fun of what you've been to all you know so does he hesitate to apply our does he apply in the end when somebody that he believes is less experienced that she hunger than he is getting is he thanking well they've shown what they think about older people by the way the comments I make so. It's at the end of the argument can be made that it it's right right on the while I think. I think I think the involvement of the upper level managers is taking you closer to being harassment but II i'm I get your point I live. And when you look at the circuit court cases a lot of things that I think would be harassment. The eight circuit some other circuits are they get now it's not not not quite there not quite a severe enough room quite pervasive enough. Okay there's a lot of different ways to look at employer liability and frequently that depends on who's doing the conduct is that a corker is at a non employee like customers are clients vendors is that the owner are the executive or is it a manager of supervisor. If it is a coworker what we look at is the employer no or should they have now is it so open that the employer should have known about it is. In when we start talking to people if everybody there we talk to knows about it we look as if we were not somebody went to hr the employer should have known. We look at on case by case basis we look at frequency was there and acquisitions by the supervisor. Did they hear about this did they not do anything about it that they kind of turn a blind eye. And then again that they failed to take immediate appropriate corrective action. And if so we look at the disclonary measures. The copy repair guy joan dreads each time her photocop your breaks down. Because the repair person assigned to her office is always learns at her makes sexually suggests of remarks. And repeatedly ask her for dates jone has complained or supervisor to the supervisor says he does not have any control. Over the repair person because that individual is not an employee do we think this is harass. Okay. And will go to the punch line do we think the employer could be on the hook for. We mentioned a couple of the scenarios where they can come up and include them member of law enforcement being involved it can get complicated. But employer so has an obligation to provide a workplace free of harassment not employee harassment could be vendors customers clients again we look at control did the employer know or should have known and did they fail to take immediate and appropriate correct of action. If it is the owner there's absolute liability there's no affirmative defences this includes top corporate officials it's amazing to me how many times we have sexual harassment cases involving the owner of the business. Because what do you do who do you go to who do you complain to when it is the owner of the. We've had a lot of those. Yeah. Okay. Supervisor harassment and employer is liable for sexualist about a supervisor with immediate and successive lee higher authority over an employee if there's a tangible employment action such as the discharge emotion for a desirable reassignment the employer is liable and there's no affirmative defence available or if there is no tangible employment action it's been taken and employer is liable subject to a possible affirmative defence. Who's the supervisor. That's a big question. Do they have the authority to decide or recommend tangible employment actions today higher people do they fire people do they promote people do they demo people do they have any weight people authority to direct the person's daily work activities or they don't have actual authority but the employee thanks they have actual authority and uses independent judgement exercising the above authority rather than merely relying on people's instructions. It's automatic it's a supervisor if it's the president the owner of partner or how ranking officials but cars are my surpriser is not the end of the analysis there's a lot of situations where employers have called people assistance managers or supervisors or whatever and they're not actually. Wouldn't meet the definition we had a case out of sercie. The employer had listed a number of people as supervisors. If we're conducting an investigation. We can talk to any employee that will talk to us at an employer if it is a supervisor because they can buy and the company we have to let the company know we're going to talk to. So this company listed a whole bunch of people super. So we did some depositions so I put this lady under oath. And asked her what her job title was she said I am the salad supervisor. I said okay how many employees do you supervise nine okay now do you hire people know the fire people know do you promote people to move now what do you do she said well I supervised the salary said okay what is that involved she said on this side I keep the coal stuff cold and on this side I keep the heart stuff hot you've been a salabar right now yes me and my hand she got that that's what I keep everything you're cold to keep everything here okay have you ever supervised an employee no. Okay thank you appreciate your company. So obviously even though they called hurry supervisor and wanted to restrict our access to her she was not. Very nice lady though. Okay turning camp teared a supervisor gazes at campus aboard an employee from head to toe and stated she looks and test him indicated she appreciated the comment but that she did not consider his behavior appropriate for the workplace. Ted replied the she need to loose it up and accept favorable comments ted also known as team continues with his behavior looking subject suggested way at our body and she watched by him while linking his lips suggestively when ted interviewed him for a promotion he implied that she would qualify without giving specifics and said he would never the last give of the promotion if she had sexually. Him refused into the promotion. Is this session harassment if they had never actually touched here. Yes. What about the promotion or we do about that. Yeah. It's winner yes short answer yes it is retaliation one of the things that we find a lot in harassment cases a lot of times the sexual estimate it's hard to tell where the search harassment stops and the retaliation picks up frequently they're connected. Okay. Preventing sexual harassment. Okay. The. I'm getting head of that notes as al. Okay. In nineteen ninety nine at nineteen ninety eight nineteen ninety nine the supreme court came down with a couple of decisions the fair great decision in the eleventh decision he created what's known as the fairget offence. If the basic idea is dead and employer have a policy in place. A sexual aspect policy harassment policy that provided a means for an employee to complain about harassment. And a water companies popped up in if they didn't already have policies create a policies at that time. And secondly and in is part of that they have to communicate the policy the employees give a copy of it yet however they get it to. The. And to establish the defence you have to ships you have to show a couple things we had a policy we had a mechanism in place and the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of the employer's mechanism to prevent and correct the harassment the idea is that you want to give the employer the opportunity to correct things. The ideal policy is fairly simple. I hate it when I get one from an employer that's like forty pages long with what notes and bells and whistles and stuff. The simpler it is the better. And it needs to provide a way around these immediate supervisor just because the frequent frequently the harasser is the immediate the alleged harassment is the immediate supervisor so there needs to be a way around now and it may be you go to hr it may be you go to the president of the company it may be you don't contact anybody in the local branch but you call our eight hundred number in minneapolis it provides a mechanism for you to safely comply ideally it also emphasises very clearly that you will not be subject to the retaliation. Because you have submitted a complaint. So if the employer has a policy in effect that has been communicated to the employees and the employee fails to take advantage of it doesn't submit a complaint the employer if a charge of discrimination's broad if a lawsuit is brought will happen as a fair defence and then the employee's gonna have to explain why they didn't want to think the that we encourage employers to do is to regularly advise employees what the nature of the policy is what we've found so many times. Is on day one of your employment when you start working you get a stack of stuff this top. It's everything it's where you park it's your uniform it's your key code and it's your sexual asthma parts so you're sand fifty things and it's the one in which attacks documents you are word us on where does it earn me anything to you. We in one of the fast food cases we had they had teenagers work in there and so they did a video of it they put all the workplace stuff on video they put him on a room together and pushed play. Well how much attention did a bunch of high school kids played to that. I can tell you how much there was also a part about safety in the workplace and had a guy fallen off the latter they thought that was funny so they kept rewinding it and watching that over and over you know. Point being clearly communicate your policy to your employees. I mean with spoke to a group at a production facility all their supervisors I gave the same spiel in this guy shot as our website I don't have time for this. I have production meetings at safety meetings I got time for this count and asked it where I haven't had a copy of your policy you got a watch. For me on a clock I read it and it was less than a minute. I give that it was a short policy it hit you got where you need to go I said forty seven seconds fifty seconds you don't have fifty seconds you all that busy I think you have read it to your employees when you have the safety meeting when you have the security meeting when you have the production meeting say hey guys this is important to us. We're going to do this every time we may if you have a problem you know call bill and hr here's the eight hundred number for headquarters this is key this is something that's born to unagain we retaliate against make it the same way you repeat safety the same way you were that you repeat production goals repeat harassment protection retaliation protection. And there's two reasons why you do that one is you don't want harassment going down in the workplace you want everybody to know this is important that this shouldn't happen and that there's a safe mechanism for people to complain but from the employers perspective it helps you get this potential defence down the road hey we told him over and over here. They didn't take advantage of that for some. Anyway. It's very important to have the policies. The. Some hands on staying out of trouble we all need to stay out of trouble. Thank before you speak were will this thing that i'm talking about offend somebody you want to have AG rated work force not everyone shares your attitudes and comfort levels you want to avoid negative comments about others never assume friendliness equal sexual interest. Avoid spreading rumours and gas don't joe could make fun of somebody at their expense nicknames should not be given that's a big one we have a lot of cases that come out of somebody that thinks they're funny and wants to give everybody a nick name. You want to. You want to be careful and be thinking about the things we've talked about when asking somebody else when you're discussing private matters at work and you want to respect people's personal space never assume that touching somebody is welcome. There are a lot of things that go into that other than just things that are sexual nature there are a lot of cultural aspects to touching other people you just I would I would avoid it at all cost. Beware of offensive gestures again there's different cultural aspects of involved in every workplace. You don't want to obviously don't want to make drager toward comments about a person's protected class that raised their color the religion their disability avoid pictures professor screen savers. Counters etc that are suggestive or offensive you want to avoid making threats. The. The. You don't want assume behavior is okay just because nobody objected. And we talked about that a little bit will we find over and over again when we conduct investigations we have people that may be hesitant to follow charge the maybe hasn't it to go to hr but what do we find out once they've gone and we started interviewing people in the workplace we found that there's other people that were offended by. We found that a lot in in harassment situations. Frequently we start off with one person and we end up with a number of things. So don't assume behaviors okay just because nobody subject. The sensitive to others and act appropriately. If someone indicates your behavior is unwarned is unwanted or objectionable stop it and don't repeat it. If it's not appropriate for a work environment don't say it don't do it. If you're not sure what you say this if a loved one was next to you. If still and out don't say it don't do it. You don't have to test the far about things that you never said. So i've got a few. Scenarios I want to go through with you I kind of skipped through when you get back to there. Okay. The question is yes no or maybe is this harassment. A supervisor asked her employee. And part me a supervisor ask his employee out for a date and she declines he doesn't ask her out again and takes no action against her. Harassment yes no. I got a thumbs down okay now anybody think we have harassment there. Do you have any ma. Got a couple maybe okay. Yes. Okay so it's a one time thing she doesn't he doesn't take any kind of action. So yeah I mean it's not going to be probative it's not going to be ongoing. The. Wow that's a twist okay that's what i'll talk about I don't know good question anybody have any thoughts on it. That's a good question. Do we think. I don't know II don't know that it changes the fact situation if she says no and he doesn't he doesn't answer again. And then there's no adverse action tired. The good good question any other thoughts on there. The. Like you did work your buddy okay. A workplace is so casual that employees swear college other names make crew jokes and constantly tease each other. Harassment yes no or. I got a maybe okay a more I will read it again a workplace is so casual that employees swear college other in its names college other names make crew jokes and constantly to use each other or how we think I got a man I got a strong maybe getting anybody else. I got a thumbs up note don't give it any names on no names okay we're no vote yes who thanks for got a problem there who thinks we got harassment I got a thumbs up. Okay I got a thumbs up in a maybe. Who thanks now. Can get nose. How many and a sim given you maybe that's pretty easier how many maybe. And i'm back to the who who is not going to raise their hand no matter what I say okay got a few though all right. I think that's important yeah. In one thing I will tell you is. It it's really weird when we get into some of these situations and you have a facility where people are comfortable using obscene language back and forth. It gets really weird when they start getting interviewed by the government investigator and they have to talk about it it gets typed up the thing that you said that you thought was real funny when everybody's joke and investment each other when it's put into a report the forty people are going to read. Not not going and when you're under oath. And when you're setting in front of a jury. And we're trying to establish a hostel work environment and we're like you also blank yeah how often everyday and when we do the investigations I mean one of the results almost always love when somebody's like I never curse ever never cursed in my life. I just pure as a driven snow of never said do do I and i've never said anything bad in my life I just like okay well we got him because what do you do you bring in the next person you know build auction yeah has ever used this word oh this morning he used that. As he ever uses one every day he's got a t shirt with that you know so yeah so though it's it I i'll i'll give this a firm maybe we're you know I understand we're giving you limited facts but. Regardless of not not it not a good not a good plan okay. An employee listens to music at work. The use of racial terms and sexually explicit content are in the lyrics let me read that again I didn't read that very well an employee listens to music at work the use of racial terms and sexually explicit content are in the lyrics harassment yes no or maybe. How do you know what they're. That's a good question. I take mine everywhere I go I got okay so you're in your situation they're listening to the nobody else's here is that right okay okay. Do we have a problem if they're the only one list. We think we're okay there okay so in first first kind of subset of the scenario they're the only person listened to it and hopefully not singing along. Not a second. Not seen a law okay so I think we're okay there what if it's not what if it's on the radio in their plan or the planet off their computer do we have a problem there. The. Because there are there help houser had what do you think. Yeah. Okay okay. So we think we have a problem yes. Okay so you think we're kind of back to looking at the totality the circumstance kind of putting in context of where you're working. Okay I mean I think that's I think that's fair I mean the. The problem I think when you get into these scenarios is how you know who's going to hear it. And you who who possibly could be offended by but no I think that. There may be stuff you can play at other places that you probably should be playing in a government office yeah. You're evident mode of it okay okay but what do you do when somebody swings the doorway. Apologize and turn off here's one of the problems that i've had in our workplace we have to talk about very horrible things we have to talk about horrible comments that people made other people and we're certain they're having a meeting in i'm so well he said blank blank blank complaint it were all set there well what about this and this is comparable to this case where they said blind bike mike blank and you look up and my co workers walking along with her twelve year old son. In our my wished we had been talking about that when they she told me he was out of your couldn't hear it and all I can. But you never know who's going on in the office. I mean in and granted you shouldn't make all your plans around youngsters being in the office but there's a lot of stuff that can go on so. But any who all right well this change there just a little bit. The. Would help if I can read moment. Okay. The. The. An employee listens to music at work. That has the the content is religious in nature. Do we have a problem. Okay so you if everybody gets headphones you're good to go out I like that everybody right against the mere bods that were done we still work in it okay i'm with you there. What if it's not what if it's piped in over the over. Do we have a problem. I'm getting a strong probably. Bound to find somebody bound offensible. Okay will it start what are you let's start your first and what if you what if it is quote christian music let's say it's contemporary christmas christian. So in terms of our question harassment yes no or maybe what we think harassment. Okay. Okay we got a concern of somebody complains to somebody's offended. The. Okay. Okay got got a firm maybe. Any other thoughts. Yes sir one question I have more than the. I think it's I think you could be very important. I think if you. I think if you let's go and stay with the music scenario I think if you went to the employer and said look I don't share the religious views of. Other people here i'd like it if we could you know not have religious music on the radio could we either not have used a group played classical music or but on you know. Yat rock or something I don't know what but. And the employers are notice of it and in the employees like no you're going to listen to what we want you to listen to. I think that that becomes more problematic. Yeah. And that kind of gets us back to the importance of hask is an importance of having a mechanism to complain where you feel comfortable saying this things going on at work I don't this is not appropriate I want to complain. Yeah. And and having the comfort level to do that. In thinking i'm not going to be retaliated against because I do that so that but no I think I think once you put the employer on notice that this is an issue what employer does next I think is very. Yeah. The. The. If you make sure that. Not taking your left over fish dinner. Oh. Something though with you no I just like the fish to everything um we have a yeah we haven't adding by the efficient our place for years does the last time somebody did it that we're gonna have to do it anyway yeah with you you want to be you will be courteous. But now we had we definitely have had fish related issues at all if you have nine fish related to but now I think it right yes right but I think your point is a good one if you want to listen to but bring your bring your air phones keep your radio at a reasonable level and then you can listen what you want to and if somebody comes in in your list you're doing your fire and up with your minimum thing and you cut it down you know you have to catch a radio from somebody walks in anyway because you want to give your full attention and talk to my but not I think I you you hit the known here these things are definitely connected. And if we're if we had these things off you don't get so point where it's harassing a nature to your point if you go on and say look I really have a concern about what's been played over the speakers can we cut that back and if you can do that without without it going further a lot of this could be handled by just being courteous to each other. The right we'll get discussion on that you get a few more things we need touch on. You would avoid dangerous words and excuses that kind of behavior for example that kind of behavior is part of growing up. I didn't mean any harm is just a prank that got out of hand that's a big one that's how they are we do things where they are we come from. They need to learn how to handle these things are just ignore. Everybody else was okay nobody complained what's your problem can't you take a joke. You're too s. You won't avoid dangerous words and excuses a while boys will be boys girls will be girls. They put their arms around everybody to your fault for being so sexy why can't she learn to accept a compliment. It's just teasing no big deal. Duties have all staff. Understand your rights and responsibilities under employers harassment in complaint policies participate in periodic training as required refrain from engaging in hostile abuse of conduct report hostile abuse of conduct by employees or others in the workplace informed the supervisor of the offended employee and management official. The. Or director of human resources designed me subjected to unwelcome hospital abuse of conduct and fully cooperate in any inquiry or investigation. What are the duties to supervisor as management insurer workplace free of illegal harassment insure that your subordinates are aware of the employers harassment complaint policies act probably in effectively to stop hostile abuse of conduct of which you're aware notified appropriate officials have reported or observe harassing conduct in of their efforts to correct the conduct appropriately evaluates for supervisors and managers of their performance under the employers harassment and complaint to policies. In summary. Key harassment points to void harassing another person put yourself into their shoes is this behaviour unwelcome then stop doing it. To deal with harassment effectively be clear let the harasser in the company know the behaviors and welcome if you're a supervisor manager would be proactive set to town for a respectful work environment show that you take harassment seriously. Be prompt as we've talked about be fair and effective in your response. Okay. Got time for probably a couple of questions anybody got anything. Yes. The. I don't know that I have I mean we've had I had a young lady coming in our contact to me last week they believe she was being discriminated against the she was twenty five and I just said sorry you're twenty five enjoyed me and twenty five but she was under the age of forty so she wouldn't cover by the age you can have discrimination within what we call the protected age group forty years agent up I don't know that i've heard a situation similar to what you're talking about it's usually the the opposite. That's a good question. Any other questions. Alright here's my info that's my phone number that's my email if there's any materials or anything that you need let me know most of the things we talked about today we have gotten sign on our website at the c dot goes. In we update that regularly we also have a lot of press releases about cases we've been involved so. Thanks so much more i'm sorry how question partly yes the question was what was the record. Oh okay right right right now right i'm sorry I can't see that. He quits right after it happens I think it would have been helpful probably to everybody if he had brought it to the employer's attention and give an employee the opportunity to correct it and it may be I think it would yes short answer yes yes I think two I think it would be helpful for him for him I think for purposes of you know protecting himself in the future saying II gave the point opportunity to correct it. And if they didn't do the correction then if he needed to pursue his claim further they wouldn't have the affirmative defence to use against him but also thank you could be helpful to the employer because if they hear about that then they may be able to take measures to staff the behaviour and put him in a situation you can continue to work. Good question i'm sorry IS. I don't have it handy no. The. But then there's a new that the electronic version after session will have updated that's getting right not probably. The. Well there is the. So the first step with your comfortable and we can. For five years. Who entered into this seriously. We want everyone to have a productive working buyer if someone. Like it's inappropriate even if you're not sure whether it wises. Yeah you're not waiting for a dog you can't help you if we don't know something is occurring and. We we would wear in that early on here you can start by the way it's to a level or harass that you will never be in trouble for expressing slan so again you would have to supervisor or even possible have south or you know either one in that movie including in the bank and weary third party's might be a legislator or might be a lot. And then keeping us unacceptable one for me so if that's occurring and you talk to us you're not going to have to talk to the obvious or the legislative that's marty's job and it will be her first offer conversation so again we would want to know about it so with their thirty one so much once again and whilst it's at the new employee that's here very shortly and I will also lms. So there you can get this pack on thank you thank you for she.