What to do if harassment is part of your job
'20.12.2017'
Source: New York Post
In an anonymous interview, one of the employees of the Chicago restaurant told how the boss threatened her to “edit” the recordings of the security cameras in which he touched her intimate parts. An Atlanta-based restaurant employee stopped her makeup to stop the stream of vulgar comments from management.
Women in the restaurant and hotel business are regularly exposed to harassment and even violence from managers, and no one will ever know about it, writes New York Post.
Those who bully these women do not appear on screens and newspaper covers, they are not written about on the Internet - they work quietly in restaurants, bars and hotels across the country, and do what they want. Lawyers say the suspects "are well aware of the victims they choose - who will put up and need work too much, who will be so scared that they won't resist."
This is especially true for the industry, where a significant proportion of female workers are immigrant. The fact of their precarious situation is also often used by employers to ensure the silence of their victims and their vulnerability. In addition, it is not only executives who enjoy the helplessness of staff. According to a survey conducted in Chicago, about 49% of employees reported incidents when guests opened the doors naked or pestered them, but only 1 from 3 women reported this to the boss. According to analysts, the majority did not say anything because one of the colleagues already had experience - and as a result of a frank story to the manager, nothing changed. Those who report such behavior often become even worse - the schedules of the maids and waitresses of the bosses are changed so that the probability of receiving tips is minimal.
In a 2011 lawsuit against the Maryland Yacht Club, Victoria Tillery reported that her boss demanded oral sex from her in exchange for “lucrative” shifts. When she complained about him, he literally began to drive the woman out of the workplace. In some cases, they try to discredit the employees and even create whole fictitious stories that smear them. This topic also concerns the personalities popular in the industry. Renowned chef John Besch left the company he founded after 25 complaints from employees of his restaurants in New York about sexual harassment from their immediate managers, one of them also complained about Besch.
Prosecution is one of the ways to resist, but the problem is that many employees sign a non-disclosure agreement, so they cannot talk about what is happening within the walls of a hotel or restaurant. All this leads to an imperceptible, but very deep and serious problem at the level of the whole country, say lawyers.
