The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Is reporting worth the risk?
Those filing abuse complaints can face changes in working conditions
Three days after Laura’s coworker violently groped her in a New York City hotel room while they attended a conference, he strode into Laura’s office like nothing happened.
Laura, a 27yearold financial adviser, had been avoiding thinking about the incident all weekend, she said. After the conference, she returned to her West Hartford apartment, walked her beagle and prepared her meals for the week. She smothered her trauma with order and normalcy.
But the sight of her coworker’s 6foot3 frame — the one that choked her — in her office at
Northwestern Mutual snapped Laura out of her shockinduced fog. Her mind crystallized around one fact: She had to report this.
“I wanted him out,” Laura said in a recent interview in her lawyer’s office. Hearst is not using her last name to protect her privacy.
Laura’s decision to report her sexual assault to her employer and then to the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities challenged the maledominated culture of her workplace. Her employer’s response failed to hold her alleged assailant accountable and offered Laura little relief, she said.
Her story highlights the experience of so many women who face the compounding blows of sexual harassment and an inadequate employer remedy.
“Coming forward and making a complaint about harassment presents one of the largest career risks that that individual will ever face in their lifetime,” said David Lewis, CEO of Norwalkbased Operations Inc., the largest human resources consulting business in the state. “There is an overwhelming number of instances in which the company fails to handle it in the way the employee envisioned.”
Hearst Connecticut Media reviewed all sexual harassment complaints filed to the CHRO from 2014 to early 2019 — 100 complaints total.
These cases described incidents of sexual harassment, ranging from unwanted comments to inappropriate touching to indecent exposure to sexual assault. The cases represent only a small fraction of the sexual harassment that occurs in the state. They are also more likely to highlight instances in which an employer allegedly failed to appropriately respond to sexual harassment in the workplace, because CHRO complaints are filed against employers, not individual harassers.
But in the sample of cases brought before the CHRO, Hearst found that people — overwhelmingly women — who reported sexual harassment experienced retaliation in 52 percent of cases.
Victims of harassment had a more than 1 in 4 chance of being fired after their report, Hearst found. In the 100 cases Hearst reviewed, the man accused was only terminated or made to resign three times.
Additionally, women were often relocated from the office or shift in which they were sexually harassed, despite their objections, Hearst found. Only one of the cases referenced situations in which harassers were transferred from their office or shift.
“Retaliation is really prevalent,” said Sharyn Tejani, director of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund. “For some people that means being fired, but for others that’s having shifts cut, having work taken away from you, being disciplined for something that used to be just fine, having work being carefully looked over.”
Termination, relocation and reduced shifts all can negatively affect the career of a victim of harassment. Not only can a victim’s report make them suffer at their current workplace, it can also hurt their chances of future employment.
“How many people are doing what we call backdoor references, unofficial conversations between your potential future employer and someone who is aware that you made a complaint to the last employer? Now suddenly, your career to some extent has a little or a big black ball next to it,” Lewis said. “Are you worth the trouble?”
These factors deter the reporting of harassment and can promote a workplace culture in which harassment persists — a vicious cycle, said Catherine Bailey, deputy director of the Connecticut Women’s Legal and Education Fund.
“It creates a climate of fear in the workplace,” Bailey said.
The assault
Outraged by Northwestern Mutual’s alleged lack of response to her case, Laura filed a complaint with the CHRO in June 2018. She is now suing the firm for discrimination in state court. The case is ongoing.
Laura did not immediately contact the New York police about her assault because, like many victims, in the days after the assault she blamed herself for the attack. She said in a recent interview that she has not made a final decision on whether she will press criminal charges, but at the moment, she doesn’t feel ready for another case.
Hearst reviewed Laura’s CHRO complaint and lawsuit. Hearst also interviewed a coworker to verify her story.
Northwestern Mutual officials defended their response to Laura’s case, but did not answer specific questions about their actions. The company said Laura’s alleged assailant left Northwestern Mutual shortly after Laura’s complaint. In a recent court filing, it denied Laura’s allegations regarding its response to her assault.
“We are committed to providing a safe, healthy work environment with zero tolerance for any type of harassment,” said Betsy Hoylman, senior director for Corporate Communication for Northwestern Mutual. “Any complaint, including the complaint brought to us by [Laura] is investigated promptly, thoroughly and confidentially. Where appropriate, we take action to make our people feel secure and implement steps to see it doesn’t happen again.”
After her coworker came into her office, Laura went to her manager to tell him what happened, she said.
Laura, her coworker and Northwestern Mutual employees attended a conference in New York City on Jan. 4 and 5, 2018, her CHRO and civil complaints said. Laura, who had been working at the West Hartford office for about four months, was excited to attend the event to make new contacts and learn skills to improve her sales.
After the first day of activities on Thursday, the conference hosted a cocktail hour for participants. Her colleagues began to drink heavily at the event, her complaints said. Laura, a recovering alcoholic, stayed sober. Laura and her coworkers then went to a nearby bar, the Mean Fiddler, for more partying. The atmosphere was fun. The team danced and joked together, Laura said.
But Laura’s coworker became more and more intoxicated, Laura recounted, culminating with him faceplanting on the bar at 2 a.m. The coworker was Laura’s friend at work with whom she was intimate once, months prior, her complaints said. She knew what it was like to drink too much and decided to bring the coworker back to the hotel where everyone was staying, she said.
Several colleagues helped Laura bring the coworker to the hotel, but they departed for their own rooms, leaving Laura to deliver her coworker to his room alone, her complaints said. Laura keyed the coworker into his room, where he stumbled around loudly attempting to order room service. When he sat on the bed, she took his shoes off. Then, she went into the bathroom to fill a glass of water for him, her complaints said.
When she returned to the bedroom, her coworker was naked, her complaints said. Laura was surprised. She had no interest in being romantic with her coworker again. But she didn’t feel threatened. She proceeded to set an alarm on his phone to wake him up in time for the conference the next morning, her complaints said. Then she turned to leave.
“He picked me up with one arm around my neck and all of a sudden my feet came out from under me,” Laura said in an interview. “We fell back on the bed. At that point, I was struggling. I was tapping his arm like ‘... let go. Please let go of me.’ ”
Laura’s coworker choked and groped her, her complaints allege. Laura struggled against him until he started to lose consciousness and loosened up. She sprinted from the room when she could finally slip away.
After escaping, Laura returned to her hotel room and sobbed in the bathroom for an hour, her complaints said. The next morning, when she told her roommate at the hotel, a female colleague at Northwestern Mutual, the colleague advised her to call the police, she said. But Laura decided not to. Hours after the incident, she blamed herself for what happened.
Laura’s coworker did not show up for the conference on Friday, her complaints said. But Laura and her coworker had traveled to the conference together — driving from West Hartford to catch a MetroNorth train in Shelton.
Despite the incident, Laura gave the coworker a ride from the train to the office Friday afternoon, her complaints said. In the car, she told him what happened. The coworker said he remembered nothing, according to her complaints, but he also apologized.
Reporting
Laura recounted all this to her manager on Monday morning, crying, she said. Laura had received no sexual harassment training at Northwestern Mutual. But she knew to report the incident to a supervisor because of training at a previous employer, she said.
After she told him, Laura’s manager hunched in his chair and put his hands over his face, she said.
“He’s like ‘I don’t know what to do. I’ve never been through this before,’ ” Laura said.
Laura’s manager then called his male boss into the room and made Laura repeat her story, she said. Recounting her story again embarrassed Laura. She felt like the air had suddenly shifted, she said. She was no longer an office insider, a part of the team, she felt, but instead a whistleblower, an outsider.
Laura’s boss asked for 48 hours to investigate the incident, her complaints said. He interviewed the coworker, who denied misconduct. He also interviewed some other staff. Laura’s boss agreed that the coworker was drunk, but the assault was a “he said/she said” episode without evidence, her complaints said.
Laura’s boss told her that her coworker was no longer allowed to contact Laura or he would be fired, she said. Her coworker texted Laura three times in the weeks after the incident. Twice he accused her of lying about the harassment.
Hearst Connecticut Media reviewed these text messages. Laura said her coworker was not fired after she showed these texts to her superiors.
Laura’s boss offered to move her office down the hall away from her coworker’s, she said. Laura agreed. But later she regretted this choice because she felt more “ostracized,” she said. Why didn’t her coworker have to move his office, she wondered.
Finally, Laura’s boss recommended she transfer to the Hartford office of Northwestern Mutual, her complaints said. Laura had mixed feelings about this transfer. She wanted to get away from her coworker, but as a sales representative, she had to make her own contacts and was paid by commission, she said. Starting over in Hartford with a new client pool would be hard. She declined a transfer. Her coworker was not recommended for a transfer, her complaints said.
It was not until over a week after Laura reported the incident and her boss investigated that a human resources manager met with Laura, her complaints said.
As the days passed, Laura struggled to feel safe and focused at work. Other coworkers told her stories of women who previously worked in the office, experienced repeated sexual harassment and quit, she said.
“It was terrible,” she said. Finally, 21 days after her assault, Laura resigned from Northwestern Mutual, her complaints said. She could no longer bear working in the same office as her coworker but saw no good avenue out of the situation, while remaining at the company.
“I felt like a failure,” Laura said. “But the truth is that it was a failure on their part, a failure to cultivate what they are trying to do in the world: protecting people, being there for women, family and children and husbands and people in general. And when you can’t do it in your own office…”
Employers respond
The managers at Northwestern Mutual made what Lewis calls the “cardinal sin” of responding to sexual harassment.
“They start to conduct their own quasiinvestigation at the point the complaint comes forward,” Lewis said. “The training to the manager is the moment someone comes to you and brings up a concern, you’re to bring them down to HR and HR is to handle it from there. It is not your place as a manager to address or manage that situation.”
Many companies believe they’re committed to stopping sexual harassment, but stumble in responding to individual cases, Tejani said.
“Most employers have policies. Most employers have training,” Tejani said. “What employers don’t seem to have is a commitment to follow through on this stuff and take it seriously.”
Tanya Hughes, executive director of the state CHRO, said they see some companies in sexual harassment mediation who earnestly want to eliminate sexual harassment in their workplaces. These businesses have strong rules and apply them uniformly. They often have diverse workforces with women and minorities in leadership positions, she said.
More harassment training may help employers and victims in situations of harassment. Connecticut lawmakers in 2019 passed sweeping legislation regarding sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Starting on Oct. 1, the law requires all companies with three or more employees to train their supervisory and nonsupervisory staff. Under the former law, only companies with 50 or more employees must offer training and that training is only required for supervisors.
The new law also requires employers to post information about sexual harassment and its remedies in the office and send it to employees via email. Fines are imposed if employers do not conduct trainings or post information.
Additionally, it addresses how employers can correct for sexual harassment. It specifies that employers may not relocate a victim of harassment, change his/her work schedule or make another substantial change without the victim’s written consent.
State Rep. Liz Linehan, DCheshire, advocated for this provision after she was sexually harassed by a coworker 20 years ago. After reporting her harassment, Linehan was placed on paid leave for four months, while her abuser remained on the job.
When Linehan proposed this legislation, her female intern told her she experienced sexual harassment while working in a Connecticut restaurant but never reported it out of fear of being removed from the most profitable shift, Linehan said.
“This will absolutely help people,” Linehan said. “It’s high time we put people before business. No man or woman should ever be sexually harassed.”
The Connecticut Business and Industry Association strongly lobbied against the state’s new law. The CBIA opposed the increased liability the new law would place on companies and the new costs they would face associated with more sexual harassment training.
“Businesses in Connecticut are under incredible pressure to ensure they provide safe workplaces for employees,” testified Eric Gjede, vice president of government affairs for the CBIA. “Every year lawmakers propose measures that increase the employers’ liability for incidents occurring in the workplace while at the same time attempting to eliminate the tools used by businesses to screen potentially problematic employees.”
Lewis also lobbied against the new state law, although it will be a boon to his consulting business. He called Linehan’s provision “government overreach.” These employment modifications are already “illegal” because they are “a form of retaliation” under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, he said.
Strong state laws against sexual harassment retaliation are key to increasing reporting, Tejani countered.