Sexual harassment - Case studies

Sally, aged 29, was a casual employee at a supermarket. During the course of her employment she faced regular inappropriate touching, sexual suggestions and requests for sexual favours by her manager in the dairy freezer section. The alleged sexual harassment started a month after starting the job, but Sally could not leave because she needed the money to support her family.

Sally lodged a complaint of sexual harassment against her employer. Her employer acknowledged that she had been harassed at work. The complaint was settled for $3000.

A female journalist, Maya, was turning 40. The editor decided to surprise her by hiring a male stripper. He mentioned it to one of the other journalists who was new in the division. The journalist didn’t know Maya well at that stage and asked the editor if he thought it was really a good idea. The editor responded saying, “she’d like that”.

The stripper arrived at the office during work hours and, with all staff present, put on music and started dancing and touching Maya in a suggestive fashion. She started to giggle but progressively became more and more uncomfortable. As the performance progressed she began crying hysterically. She ran to the toilets crying and about 30 minutes later left for the day.

The next day another senior editor spoke to the editor about the issue and told him it was inappropriate to organise a stripper. The editor spoke to Maya a day or so later and said “I’ve been told to apologise. Do you know what you are doing to me – why did you complain?” In fact, Maya hadn’t complained because she was too scared of the repercussions it would have for her career. There was no apology from the newspaper nor any offer of counselling.

Maya lodged a complaint of sexual harassment with the Commission. At conciliation, Maya and her employer reached an agreement that she would receive a written apology about the incident and that the organisation would participate in equal opportunity training.

Jo worked as a payroll officer in the head office of a car manufacturing company. A male co-worker in her division, who had the office next to hers, used to work very late a night. Through a glass partition between the walls, Jo noticed that her co-worker was looking at pornographic sites on the internet, she heard noises which she could only explain as being noises made whilst he was masturbating.

On reporting this to the chief accountant of the division, a supervisor spoke to the man, by pulling him aside and telling him to stop doing it. Eventually the man was worked out of the organisation. Jo was offered no offer of assistance or counselling in respect of the incident.

Jo lodged a complaint of sexual harassment with the Commission. The complaint was settled for $5,000 and the implementation of equal opportunity training for all managers and supervisors.