A friend of mine recently had a supervisor come onto him during a company trip and he rejected her. As he didn’t want to get her fired, he tried to deal with the matter in company by talking things out with her. She became increasingly hostile. He confided to a few of his coworkers what had happened and they encouraged him to go to management. He went to her and told her that he was going to go to management about what had happened. She went to the management and said that he deserved to be fired, but that he would sue for sexual harassment if he was fired (ie, was making it all up).
The management asked him what happened and talked to a few of his coworkers, all of whom support him over her. Today, they fired him for sexual harassment. They said that he created a hostile work environment and formed a social coalition against the manager when he told the coworkers what had happened. I believe that they decided to get rid of him because she is more valuable to the project and cannot be replaced as easily as he can.
Is it really illegal for the victim of sexual harassment to tell his coworkers what happened?
It is the classic He Said/She Said scenario. Is it legal? Slippery slope…
Unfortunately, he played his hand to her by stating he would be going to management and by sharing the problem with others before going straight to management. She did an end-run around him. Sad to say, it happens all the time.
Some companies require that the victim go directly to HR as soon as they are harassed. May be partly to avoid these sorts of he-said-she-said scenarios.
Legalities I don’t know, but I recognize some stupidities.
First, I wonder about “talking things out with her.” What’s to talk about? She propositioned, he declined, both are supposed to just pretend it didn’t happen and go on. Rehashing it just makes it worse – rubs her face in the rejection.
Second, “became increasingly hostile” (bolding mine) suggests a sequence of talk–bad response–talk more–worse response–talk even more–even worse response. How dumb do you have to be to keep going?
Third, given that the co-workers did support him over her, he did indeed form a social coalition against her, however unwittingly. Walked right into it, and got hoist by his own petard.
And then he tells her his plan to go management, giving her a beautiful opportunity to go there first and get the perspective aligned in her favor.
This poor fellow has no street smarts, but mostly HE DOESN’T KNOW WHEN TO KEEP HIS BIG MOUTH SHUT.
Two things, I’ve dealt with sexual harrassment and never see it end well. This is why I say NEVER go to H/R with sexual harrassment. You get a lawyer ASAP and then go
As for creating a hostile working environment, that’s a joke. It takes A LOT and I mean A LOT to prove this.
H/R is calling his bluff and saying he created a hostile working environment. Good luck on that company getting it to stick.
Your friend needs a lawyer like yesterday. Once he gets a lawyer and his friends who won’t back him up realize they’re gonna be up for perjury if this thing goes too far…Well the whole point is he needs a lawyer and let them work it out.
Remember if you think you’re being sexually harrassed get a LAWYER FIRST. Then go to H/R. Things like this never end well and you might as well get protected right from the start.
It is not illegal for a victim of sexual harassment to discuss that with coworkers. I’m not sure that’s even what you really meant to ask. It might conceivably be legal for someone to be fired for not bringing a complaint through proper channels and instead complaining directly to coworkers. That is not the same as it being illegal for the employee to do so–he is not being accused of a crime, I don’t think, but a violation of policy. However, a policy like that would place a very high burden on the employer to communicate the proper channels, because otherwise that policy has a strong potential to be retaliatory (see below).
If an employee were in fact spreading false rumors about sexual harassment in the workplace by a supervisor, and the employer failed to act to stop the rumors, they would have a legal risk for failing to act. Sexual harassment is a legal issue for employers, it’s not an illegal act by the employee unless it would be be illegal in another context (sexual assault, battery, stalking, indecent exposure, what have you) in which case you should get the police involved, too.
He would also be wise to immediately document every relevant event and conversation, with dates, times, and witnesses. Obviously, this would have been much better if he had done it all along. But it is probably the first thing the lawyer would tell him to do.
I am actually not sure how much a lawyer will engage with him at this point. The next step in a lawsuit is to go through the EEOC to get what is called a right-to-sue letter. This means that the EEOC has passed on prosecuting it themselves (which they will probably do unless it is a case with large class action potential), maybe made some attempts at mediation, and it is now up to the alleged victim to bring a lawsuit. Maybe the lawyer works with him through the EEOC process, or comes in after. This link and the one below about how to file a charge may be helpful. If he is a state employee, slightly different state laws may apply. http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/fs-sex.html
One thing he does have in his favor is that it is easier to win a claim of retaliation than of harassment itself. The situation as laid out in the OP seems to put the employer at large risk of a retaliation suit. It sounds like they are practically agreeing that they fired him for saying he was sexually harassed.
I didn’t think actually coming on to a person was itself sexual harassment, in the first place. I read here that you had to prove that the advances were unwelcome, meaning you had to have declined a previous advance. And nothing in the OP indicates that anything happened after the first advance. At least, not until the guy approached her later and called it sexual harassment. I could see getting verbally hostile over being accused of that.
First of all it doesn’t sound like he was sexually harassed. The criteria keep changing, but at its heart, it has to be something that you can’t turn down if you want to keep your job.
Second, it does sound like he created a hostile work environment. Again, the criteria have changed, but were always a lot more flexible than sexual harassment.
Imagine you are the person who made the pass and was rejected. Not only was your pass rejected, but now the person who rejected you is telling everybody. Not cool.
If you can imagine yourself in this situation, try to tell yourself the working environment is not hostile. You don’t know who he told. You don’t know who’s whispering behind your back. And when it gets into who supports who–well, were they there? Or did they just hear it from him?
Why on earth would he have to talk things out with her in the first place? Guy is totally clueless and completely insensitive.
Also, maybe it wasn’t a pass. I’ve seen plenty of situations where men (women too, but more men) have seen a sexual opportunity where one did not in fact exist.
But even if it was, he should have said no, and then kept his mouth shut at work. Don’t kiss and tell, and don’t reject and tell.
The OP doesn’t suggest that the guy ever accused his manager of sexual harassment, either to her face or to anybody else. Rather, he himself is being accused of sexual harrassment, by trying to make an issue out of an unwelcome pass, discussing the matter with his co-workers and forming a “social coalition” against his boss.
Stupid. Waaaaay too risky, as he cannot be sure who has whose back in internal alliances.
Much more stupid. I can’t think of any reason why one would do that – if he liked her enough to have sex with her, have the sex. ANY amount of lking less than that is not worth what’s obviously coming next.
There is also quid pro quo sexual harassment. That is a situation in which an employee is treated favorably or unfavorably based on a sexual relationship (or refusing to have one) with a supervisor. (If it is favorable treatment, typically it is another subordinate who complains.)
Since, assuming the facts are as described in the OP, the woman is in a position of authority over the man, she has a lot less leeway to propose a sexual relationship. There is a pretty good chance that a large, bureaucratic organization like this would have a policy against supervisor-subordinate relationships. This is an example of one such university policy to that effect: http://www.stjohns.edu/campus/handbook/chapter6/discrimination/fraternization.stj
heh heh… i feel for the OPs friend. Sexual harrassment can be a rediculous thing. As far as as its concerned, the manger “coming on” to your friend could claim they meant nothing by it, and that discussing something of a sexual nature unexpectedly with your friend made her uncomfortable and constituted sexual harrassment. Of course, everyone else at the office saying that your friend would never do something like that, and that it was completely out of character for him to do, Are simply his friends and trying to cover for him.
Can you tell who got fired for horse hockey like that?
It’s really impossible to say from this information: there’s a huge range between “confided in one or two people about how to handle an awkward situation” and “entertained the entire break room with 15 minute tirade about how pathetic she was”.
The thing is, once your supervisor comes onto you, you’re pretty much cooked. There are not a lot of happy outcomes. If you turn him/her down, then things are going to be awkward, because you rejected him/her. If you didn’t, things are likewise going to be awkward, possibly in your favor for awhile, but probably not forever as you will be accused of benefitting from favoritism, even if you don’t.
The only good possibility is if you and your supervisor turn out to be each other’s soulmates. And how often does that happen? But even if it does happen, one of you is probably going to have to get the hell out of Dodge.
In most cases, the supervisor is going to stay, and the underling is going to go.
Haven’t been there with Sexual Harassment, have been there with other bad behavior. Made some of the same mistakes, learned to shut the hell up and not show my cards - which only allows others to beat you to the punch.