Seems like the Fred Meyer grocery store chain might want to tighten up its policies against sexual harassment.
The retailer, which has stores in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, recently agreed to pay $487,500 to seven employees at its Oak Grove, OR store who had complained they had been sexually harassed virtually every day for several years — by a customer.
And it’s not the first time Fred Meyer agreed to such a penalty. In late 2008, the company also settled an EEOC sexual harassment lawsuit on behalf of three Oregon City store employees for $485,000.
According to a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the latest chapter began in 2007. One customer visited the store almost daily, and often several times a day, and he would make lewd comments to both employees and customers, in addition to grabbing employees, cornering them, touching their breasts, and pulling one employee onto his lap.
Numerous complaints by female employees to store management and security were dismissed as “hearsay,” according to the EEOC, even after store security videotaped the customer reaching over the checkout counter to grab a female associate.
Employees were told that the customer could not be banned from the store unless the security department personally witnessed him engaging in the offensive behavior. The EEOC characterized that as “a management decision that forced many female employees to suffer his harassment for years.”
Even EEOC officials were surprised by the case. “We don’t see the same legal claims against the same employer in the same area very often,” said agency regional attorney William Tamayo. “We filed this case just months after the last consent decree expired.”
In additional to the monetary penalty, the company agreed to to revamp its policies, train its staff, and report to the EEOC future complaints of sexual harassment.
Fred Meyer is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Kroger Company, listed as one of the five largest retailers in the world.
Nearly $500k tab for turning a blind eye to harassment — from a customer
