Corporate America is facing its own #MeToo movement
The Roman Catholic church is not the only institution that has a history of protecting and concealing sexual predators; corporate America is also guilty.
Readers have been sharing their experiences and complaints. Unsurprisingly, they mirror a grand jury report in Pennsylvania, which described senior clergy shielding serial harassers and rapists by moving them to different workplaces and cloaking their behavior in secrecy.
People with authority have leveraged their power to impose themselves on others throughout human history. Societies periodically denounce such behavior, and the latest iteration, calling itself the #MeToo movement, turns one year old next month.
We must not tire. There is still too much work to do.
Corporate leaders still protect perpetrators rather than victims. Sometimes the calculus is financial, as when an administra-
tive worker complains about a top performer. In others, managers worry about reputational risk and demand cover-ups.
In a lawsuit filed in San Antonio, two women allege that M7 Aerospace retained and protected an employee with an acknowledged history of sexual harassment.
Ann Cantu was making photocopies last year when she allegedly caught a co-worker secretly taking photographs up her skirt. Cantu immediately reported him to a human resources officer, who seized the phone and called the police.
Before they arrived, the man confessed he had a “problem,” according to court papers. HR then allowed him to leave before police arrived. Instead of giving the phone to police, they sent it to corporate headquarters in Fort Worth where top leaders reviewed the photos, which included close-ups of employees’ body parts.
This was not the first time the women at M7 had complained about this individual. In 2011, a woman filed a sexual harassment complaint, but the company’s managers decided only to reprimand and move him. As soon as that woman left the company, managers moved him back to the original office.
“There was an analysis after the first complaint, and the risk-reward analysis for them fell on the side of placing other women at his mercy,” said Carlos Solis, Cantu’s attorney from Hilley and Solis. “She shouldn’t have to endure what she endured, and every person needs to be working to end sexual harassment.”
A spokeswoman for Elbit Systems of America, which owns M7 Aerospace, declined to comment.
Many cases, though, never reach the public. Private employers require about half of the nonunion workers in the U.S. to sign arbitration agreements as a condition for employment, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a worker’s rights think tank.
These agreements require employees to take workplace disputes, including sexual harassment allegations, to an arbitrator hired by the company. The arbitration is confidential, allowing companies and their problem employees to avoid exposure.
This is another reason why one out of four women will endure sexual harassment at work, according to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“There are countless cases where companies immediately want to sweep everything under the rug and keep the bad guy,” said Todd Slobin, a Houstonbased employment attorney. One of his clients is worried about future employees.
Stefani Bambace was hired by Berry Y&V Fabricators in 2016 to work as a private tutor at the home of the CEO, Allen Berry. Soon after, she became the personal assistant to Berry’s wife, Danielle.
Bambace alleges that Danielle Berry created a hyper-sexualized workplace by exposing Bambace to nudity, inappropriate images and sexual propositions. After Bambace complained, Berry fired her in July 2017. Her employment agreement requires mandatory and confidential arbitration.
Attorneys for the Berrys did not respond to requests for comment.
Slobin filed a lawsuit in April, arguing that there is a public interest in hearing sexual harassment cases in public, not behind closed doors where predators can get away with a slap on the wrist. His reasoning is sound. All 56 state attorneys general, including Texas’ Ken Paxton, have signed a letter calling for laws exempting sexual harassment cases from mandatory arbitration.
There is no such law in Texas, though, so Slobin will need a novel argument to convince the judge to throw out the employment agreement.
“We told our client this will be an uphill battle, but she is willing to be the poster child for this issue because of what happened to her,” Slobin said.
Ultimately, though, it is up to state and federal lawmakers to make it impossible for corporations to protect sexual predators. Companies will only act against powerful bosses if the alternative is public shaming and expensive litigation.
We’ve made progress in enabling women to speak out, but now we need accountability and transparency in every workplace to ensure that no one feels safe mistreating a co-worker.