Sexual harassment claim leads to layoff
She came to my attention on Instagram. I followed a link to her GoFundMe page, where she was seeking short-term financial help. The first line stood out: “I was laid off when I filed a sexual harassment claim.”
Her story is long and complicated. Too many details to cover here. It involves working in construction and feeling that she was not being treated fairly, as male employees less qualified and experienced received raises and promotions over a nearly two-year period.
Then there’s the sexual harassment part. Here are just a few examples.
“They were going to give me a raise at 90 days. But a superintendent says, ‘You need to babysit my kid.’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ And he says, ‘Yeah, because I want to go out with my wife and drink, and we don’t want to have my kid with us. So you babysit my kid on the weekends and I’ll make sure you get your $2-an-hour raise.’
“That same superintendent was all the time commenting on these (my breasts). He’d reach for an ink pen that’s in my shirt pocket and be like, ‘You thought I was going to grab your boob, didn’t you?’
“Then there was a foreman who texts me and says, ‘If you want your promotion, I got you, girl. Just come to my trailer.’”
Harassment in the workplace is not a new concept for her.
“My mom’s a cop. I grew up knowing that guys are going to be guys, whether that’s right or wrong, whether that’s PC or not. You put up with some things just because you’re going to have a hard life if every time someone looks at you and says, ‘That shirt sure looks nice on you,’ you go file a sexual harassment claim. But as my mom taught me, if they say that your job or promotion is dependent on you sleeping with them or whatever, then that’s sexual harassment. That’s definitely taking things too far.”
— Tammy James
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