HR and Employment Law News
Category
Topic
Free Special Reports
Get Your FREE HR Management Special Report. Download Any One Of These FREE Special Reports, Instantly!
Featured Special Report
Claim Your Free Copy of
Top 10 Best Practices in HR Management
HR professionals have the opportunity to play a more strategic role in the business by keeping up to date with the latest HR innovations--technological, legal, and otherwise. This special report will discuss how HR managers can anticipate and address some of the most challenging HR issues this year.
Topics in this special report include:
- Healthcare in 2012
- FMLA Paid Leave Initiatives
- Ethics
- Social Media
- Environmental Responsibility
- Workplace Wellness
- Classifying Employees
- Retirement of Baby Boomers
- Identity Theft
- Communications
Make sure you have the information you need to know about these current HR challenges and how to most effectively manage them in your workplace.
Download Now!
August 20, 2001
90 Dial Workers Claim Sexual Harassment
<For a Limited Time receive a
FREE HR Report "Top 10 Best Practices in HR Management." This comprehensive special report will give you the information you need to know about these current HR challenges and how to most effectively manage them in your workplace.
Download Now
A federal judge has cleared the way for a class-action lawsuit alleging a "pattern and practice of sexual harassment" at an Illinois plant operated by the soap maker Dial Inc.
The suit was filed in May 1999 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which says it has identified 90 women who claim to have been sexually harassed at the suburban Montgomery plant. The incidents stretch back to 1988, the EEOC says.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the suit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks back pay and other compensation for harassment victims.
The company requested a summary judgment, which would have headed off a trial, but U.S. District Judge Warren K. Urbom said no. "It appears that the work environment at Dial was sexually charged in a way that was offensive and demeaning to women," he wrote.
Several female employees, Urbom noted, testified "that they were subjected to physically invasive behavior by male employees."
Moreover, Urbom wrote, "There is little, if any, evidence demonstrating that Dial took steps to determine whether individual incidents, which occurred frequently and continuously, were indicative of a larger problem requiring a companywide response."
As a result, he said, he was not persuaded that Dial's efforts to prevent harassment at the plant were reasonable as a matter of law.
Dial, based in Scottsdale, Ariz., said it "remains confident that it will prevail."
"The only effect of the recent ruling by the court is that there may be a trial in the case brought by the EEOC," the company said. "There is no finding in this decision that Dial violated the law in any manner. It simply holds that some of the claims may go to trial."
If a jury were to award each of the 90 women the maximum of $300,000 in compensatory and punitive damages permitted under federal law, Dial's aggregate liability in the case could exceed $25 million, said Noelle Brennan, EEOC supervisory trial attorney.
A trial date has not been set.
Brennan said the Dial suit is the second-biggest harassment suit handled by the Chicago office to date, in terms of the number of women involved.
In 1998, Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America Inc. paid a record $34 million to settle federal charges that it did nothing to stop sexual harassment at its Normal, Ill., plant. That payout was shared by more than 400 women, many of whom still work there.
Dial is best known for its line of soaps. The company, with $1.6 billion in revenue last year, also makes Purex laundry detergents, Renuzit air fresheners and Armour Star canned meats.
To view a Chicago Tribune story, click here. Registration required.