Sexual Harassment

4 Pages 981 Words

Despite widespread publicity about the perils of sexual harassment, surveys demonstrate that businesses operating in the United States have yet to address the problem. Moreover, recent news reports indicate the sexual harassment has reached the highest levels of management. Although businesses know it exists, they appear unsure of what to do about it. As a result, the spector of employer liability for sexual harassment continues to loom over the workplace.

Failure to attempt to solve and to take a stand on this aggressive subject can result not only in costly lawsuits, but also in a loss of employee morale, decline in productivity, and an erosion of a company’s public image.

This may prove costly because these risks have substantially increased in years. In 1991, Congress amended Title VII to permit victims of sexual harassment to recover damages (including punitive damages) under federal law. Moreover, in 1993 the U.S. Supreme Court broadened the reach of this law by making it easier to prove injury. As a result, sexual harassment in the workplace presents a clear and present danger to businesses. They must now take action or face increasing risk of liability.

To play it smart, companies need to understand the whole issue of sexual harassment. They need to consider the disturbing statistics behind an often forgotten and hidden problem, the legal grounds available to victims, the current trends in the law, and the ways that companies can protect themselves.

On-the-job sexual harassment is not a recent problem, although legal liability for it is. It’s a problem that is just shrugged off and forgotten about. Surveyed in Redbook magazine, a poll found that nine out of ten women have been subjected to unwanted sexual advances at work. In 1980, the federal government surveyed it’s own employees and found that forty-two percent of the women stated that they experienced some form of work-related sexual harassme...