Posted on October 9, 2006 4:30 AM by
Shanti Atkins
In the past week, the EEOC filed a slew of high profile discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits. On Monday, October 2, the Commission targeted several Bay Area employers for sexual harassment, including Sizzler Restaurant (operated by Worldwide Restaurant Concepts, Inc.) and Sharp Precision. In each case, the EEOC alleges that female employees faced illegal conduct on a nearly daily basis that ranged from derogatory comments, to inappropriate touching and physical threats.
These cases highlight the critical importance of preventative discrimination and harassment training, as well as the need for remedial training in response to misconduct.
In each case, the EEOC seeks not only monetary damages and injunctive relief from the employers, but has also asked the court to order these companies to provide employees with mandatory training on anti-discrimination laws.
In each of the situations, proactive discrimination and harassment training could have been provided at a fraction of the legal and operational costs associated with the misconduct. Now, these companies are facing the costs of a lawsuit and damages, along with training, which if adopted earlier, may have prevented the problems in the first place. And all of these employers will need to pay attention to AB 1825, providing their California supervisors with at least two hours of interactive harassment prevention training in 2007.
Just two days later, on October 4, the Commission announced three more employment discrimination lawsuits against the Atlanta Bread Co. restaurant chain (along with its owner, ARO Enterprises), BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. and auto-parts retailer, AutoZone Inc. The complaint against the first two companies alleges racial discrimination against black and Latino employees. The complaint against AutoZone accuses the company of permitting sexual harassment of several female workers. It is highly likely that the resolution to each of these cases, whether court ordered or agreed to in a settlement, will involve remedial harassment and discrimination training.
Training as a remedial tool is clearly an increasing trend in employment litigation – but that’s really not the most important take away here. Nor is the fact that good training, if in place, can provide a protective shield to reduce liability and damages. The real pay off is training that prevents the misconduct from occurring in the first place.
And I’m not talking about a detailed, complex overview of state and federal laws. I’m talking about the basics – the kind of “101” information every employee and manager should have.
Does your organization embrace the basics? If you do, the payoff can be huge. If you don’t, the punishment can be crippling.
Tags:
Federal Harassment Training,