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Loading ...Lowe’s settles sex harassment suit for $1.7 million
08.21.2009 6:30pm EDT
(Seattle) Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse Inc. has agreed to pay $1.7 million to settle in a sexual harassment case brought by three employees in Longview, including one who said she was sexually assaulted in 2006.
Under the three-year consent decree signed Thursday by U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, Lowe’s also must revise policies on discrimination, harassment and retaliation; provide training on those concerns to all employees at the company’s 37 stores in Washington state and 13 stores in Oregon; and report regularly to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, which filed the lawsuit.“Severe sex-based harassment of young workers was permitted to run rampant at one of the nation’s largest retailers,” Acting EEOC Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru said in a prepared statement. “It is shocking that Lowe’s store managers actively engaged in and even encouraged such blatant unlawful conduct and then retaliated against the victims for objecting to it.”
Lowe’s denied the claims of the three workers and did not admit any liability but settled “in the interest of avoiding additional disruption and litigation costs,” according to a statement issued by corporate parent Lowe’s Cos. Inc. in Mooresville, N.C.
“Lowe’s is proud of our anti-discrimination policies and procedures and is pleased the company has been able to secure a settlement with the EEOC that supplements our ongoing efforts to prevent discrimination in the workplace,” the statement said, adding that the decree requires only “minor revisions” in sexual harassment policies.
Lowe’s is the nation’s second-largest home improvement retailer, trailing only The Home Depot Inc., with more than 1,675 stores in the U.S. and Canada.
According to the three workers, their problems began within months after they started work when the store opened in November 2005.
One, a 21-year-old woman, said she repeatedly was implicitly propositioned by the 44-year-old store manager and that he sexually assaulted her in his office after she was given a promotion.
Jeremiah Harrison and Chester Davison, both in their 20s at the time, said department heads called them gay although they are heterosexual and subjected them to graphic sexual references. Davison said that when he complained to the store manager, he was told that he and Harrison should avoid spending time together.
All three said they were subjected to months of verbal abuse and a sexually hostile work environment before Harrison and the woman were fired and Davison resigned under pressure, all by September 2006.
“It became almost like a bad fraternity, and those people had a lot of power,” their lawyer, Scott C.G. Blankenship, told The Daily News of Longview after the EEOC lawsuit was filed in February 2008.
The store manager is no longer with Lowe’s, said Christine B. Ahearn, vice president for public relations.
Just realized I misspelled a few things (oops, lol).
I just wanted to state that Lowe’s is really a great company, and has very good employee benefits, as well as domestic partner benefits.
However, I will say that sexual misconduct has ran rampant in a few of their stores, and obviously these, as well. I worked for them, was a department manager, and found that I was verbally abused by a female worker after she found out I as gay (she said, “too bad he’s a faggot”. I brought it up to her asst. manager, only to find that I was fired shortly thereafter. I had an exemplary work record with them, and was even promoted right before I reported her. I attempted to find the reasons behind my firing, as I was given absolutely NONE, and cooperate REFUSED to inform me of such. Alabama sucks for worker protection.
Furthemore, the store manager was fired a few months later for having sexual relations with the PTC (personal training coordinator – aka glorified human resources rep they have in each Lowe’s store), she was demoted and shipped to another store, and one of the Asst. store managers was fired for not only stealing, BUT also having sexual relations with this same PTC. Turns out, the is the second time this has happened to the former store manager (he was fired from JCP for doing the same thing as a store manager). As for the PTC, she was a total tramp, but fun to hang around.
Ironically, if it had been a couple of real gay guys, Lowes would have fought it, and if having to pay ou – would never pay 1.3 million!!!
This is no different than the so called ‘gay panic’ used by homophobes for a century by lawyers and courts to diminish OUR worth as humans.
The sick reality is that Heterosexuals being accused of ‘being gay’ is MUCH MORE TERRIFYING and AWFUL than gays actual being harressed – according to the heteroarchy!
When that attitude changes, we know we will have truly progressed.
This is a problem for people everywhere, in every state. Harassment in the workplace is sometimes excused, but I’m glad that the employees went through the proper channels and sought legal counsel! I’ve been subject to sexual harassment on the job with my first employer, but my store management fired the other person immediately after verifying my accounts with another witness.
I felt safe in that job after that, and that’s what everyone deserves when they’re working. It’s a shame that women are still going through this struggle in the workplace, and it’s stupid that men are now going through the same thing.
This will continue to happen so long as this type of behavior is still accepted as social norms among the young generation. We sometimes joke around with our friends and allow them to say things that nobody else would allow them to say, but that’s permitting ignorance to take root. Ignorance is ignorance, plain and simple… We need a culture shock in this country in order to fix this problem, but sadly that’s nowhere in sight.
http://www.citizenzero.us