On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Joe Hass <[email protected]> wrote: > > Once again, the problem lies somewhere in the middle. > > Knowing enough HR people in my travels (by becoming friends with them, > not because of any particular activity), let me add what I've learned > about that phrase: > > "Hostile Work Environment" is one of those phrases that makes HR > people stop dead in their tracks. You can tell them your boss is > physically abusing an employee, and they may not blink, but drop those > three words in a sentence, and they will come to a full stop and > listen to you because those words have a very clear legal threshold > that they have to investigate for fear of countersuits and the like. > > This is painting with a broad brush, but here it is: you don't get to > decide when you've crossed that line. Others do. At the time of this > writing, none of the LS staff have come forward to make that claim. If > they do, this becomes a totally different situation. > > The catch, of course, is that it's impossible to prove a negative: > that Letterman's relationship with Birkitt did not impact the staff. > It's as if you're trying to separate the powder from a glass of > Kool-Aid.
I am not so sure how what you are saying here differs from what I am saying - except that I disagree with you a bit on who gets decide when a line has been crossed. To sue for sexual harassment the plaintiff ultimately has to convince a jury that the line has been crossed. It is true that a lot of deference is given to the employee who experiences the environment as hostile - but it is not true (as is often portrayed in the media) that an employee can sustain a claim of a hostile work environment based on an idiosyncratic response to supervisor behavior that has never been shared or documented. In other words, I do not think it is true that the accused has to prove a negative. What they have to prove is that they did not reckless disregard a formal complaint from an employee, or require any employee to provide sexual favors (or tolerate sexual by play) in order to get promted or continue employment. An employee may be offended by her bosses' poster from the film "Casablanca", because to her it is obvious that the two main characters had extramarital sexual intercourse, and the poster seems to be condoning, glorifying and even encouraging extramarital sexual behavior by employees. But this employee must, at the very least, file a complaint with the appropriate person (either her supervisor, or the designated HR person), and request that the offending behavior stop. If an employee at Worldwide Pants felt offended or slighted because in their opinion a co-worker was given a workplace advantage because of a sexual relationship, that employee would either have to show evidence that such a quid pro quo occurred, or at the very least have formally complained about it to the appropriate party. All I am saying is that the mere existence of a sexual relationship between a supervisor and a subordinate, in the absence of either a history of complaints or evidence of sexual extortion, does not constitute sexual harassment or a hostile workplace. If one or more of the LS staff make a claim that they experienced a hostile work environment, they will, at the least, have to show that they had formally complained about it at least once in the past, or provide evidence of a direct link between the sexual relationship and a workplace advantage. Of course, they may be able to provide one or both of these, in which case Dave might well be guilty of sexual harassment. But again, the mere fact that he had sex with staff members is not, in and of itself, evidence of sexual harassment. The reason so many corporate HR offices do everything they can to discourage workplace sexual relationships is not because they are wrong in their essence, but because they leave the company and the supervisor vulnerable to litigation - litigation which is inherently messy and ugly, and which most companies feel that, even if they win, they still lose. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
