The Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Inc. (CLC) announced today that United States District Judge Joan B. Gottschall has ordered final approval to the settlement of a class action involving nearly 70 women, filed in 2001 in federal court in Chicago, that charged widespread sexual harassment of temporary female employees at Bob Watson Chevrolet, one of the Chicago metropolitan area’s largest car dealerships, based in Harvey, Illinois.
No class member objected to the terms of the settlement, resulting in unanimous class acceptance.
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The Bob Watson employees who filed this suit – principally African-American, female telemarketers – brought the suit to end the constant, on-the-job harassment that, according to the federal complaint, Watson management had inflicted on them. Most of the class members were short-term employees, working for Bob Watson for between two weeks and six months.
The suit charged that several high-ranking managers routinely demanded sexual favours, sexual dances or poses, and sexual gratification from workers in return for job security or greater compensation. According to the plaintiffs, Bob Watson male managers described their sex organs as their weapons; threatened to discharge women workers who complained about harassment; and attempted to examine or grope the bodies of female employees.
Furthermore, according to the plaintiff’s court documents, Bob Watson managers regularly made crude comments about their own sexual practices, and openly fantasised, in vulgar terms, about the sexual organs and sexual activities of some female employees.
Although Bob Watson management claimed to have provided written notification to the permanent employees of their right to object to sexual harassment, in court papers Bob Watson accepted that it did not regularly provide temporary employees with that same information.
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By GlobalDataThe total settlement cost to Bob Watson is almost $300,000, including payments of $3,000 to each of 66 class members who responded to settlement notices, as well as additional payments to the three named plaintiffs and CLC.
According to Latasha McDaniel, the first named plaintiff: “All we wanted was to do a good job and be able to support our children. To have this happen was horribly unfair and extremely degrading. I am grateful that this settlement was reached and that other women workers won’t have to deal with this kind of thing any more.”
McDaniel and other short-term workers belong to a segment of the labour force that has rarely succeeded in obtaining relief in federal court from sexual harassment. However, on March 6, 2002, Judge Gottschall certified the Bob Watson settlement class, consisting of 69 female workers, and gave preliminary approval to the settlement. This affirmed the plaintiffs’ view that the sexual harassment occurred in a systemic manner and should be resolved on a class-wide basis.
After Judge Gotschall’s decision, each plaintiff was mailed a notice describing the case and giving her the option to participate in the settlement, to object to it, or to exclude herself from the case entirely. In fact, of 69 class members, 66, or 96%, wrote back to participate in the settlement and all of them expressed their approval of it, a notably high response and approval rate for a class action.
Commenting on the settlement, McDaniel’s lawyer, Michael Fridkin, Director of the CLC Employment Opportunity Project, said: “This is a long-needed vindication of the rights of temporary female workers to dignity and equal treatment in the workplace. They have rarely achieved this kind of relief – comparable to that received by permanent employees for sexual harassment – in Chicago or anywhere else.”
Further, Fridkin noted: “Researchers have found that in jobs that are predominantly female, such as telemarketing by temporary workers, sexual harassment can be so prevalent that women workers assume it is unchallengeable. As a result, sexual harassment cases on behalf of temporary workers are rarely filed, rendering this settlement an important symbolic, as well as practical, victory.”
Initially, McDaniel protested the Bob Watson culture of harassment by filing a sexual harassment charge with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). McDaniel was later joined by two additional named plaintiffs, April Galvin and Darnetta Calhoun.
In addition to the settlement’s cash award of $3,000 per victim, Bob Watson must institute a company-wide anti-harassment program with four components: first, at Bob Watson’s expense, the EEOC must provide on-site training to all Bob Watson managers on their duty to halt sexual harassment and the right of workers to complain about harassment, in confidence, and without fear of retaliation. Second, upon hire and again once every year, every Bob Watson employee must take an anti-harassment course, again at company expense and on company time, informing employees of their right to be free from harassment, the duty of managers not to harass, and the Bob Watson procedure for making complaints. Third, to reform Watson’s historical practice of not always giving temporary employees documentation on their employment rights, Bob Watson must distribute written manuals to each employee detailing the rights and remedies for workplace harassment. And fourth, for the next three years, on a quarterly basis and in writing, Bob Watson must certify to Judge Gottschall its compliance with these procedures. False representations could subject Bob Watson to additional sanctions.
While these temporary employees worked on-site at Bob Watson and took direction from Bob Watson management, they were paid by Labor Ready, a nationwide temporary labour agency that contracted with Bob Watson. However, Labor Ready was not a target of the lawsuit because it was Bob Watson managers who harassed company workers, working under the exclusive supervision of Bob Watson management.
