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Sexual harassment on job condoned by supervisors and HR. Need unemployment after quit

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mbritney45

Junior Member
Maryland.
I quit a job due to sexual harassment and harassment as well as male employees being treated better than female employees. The men on our team never had to do any work and the women had to everything. The man who sits across from the supervisor brought a dildo to work and wore it on his face and asked women to sit on his face. This particular man also wore asian masks and made fun of asians and said the word "nig*ger", he also made crude jokes saying things like "make love like the devil" and "give your loved ones a hip replacement for Christmas"
Is this considered sexual harassment and also this involved alcohol at times (drinking on the job) Im trying to get unemployment insurance from quitting, and my employers of the 30 people company know exactly what was going on, even the HR woman knew and laughed about it. do you think they can deny my unemployment benefits?
 


Beth3

Senior Member
That depends on whether the State decides you had "good cause" (as defined in UC regulations) to voluntarily quit your job. Assuming you have applied for UC benefits, you're going to have to follow the process and see what happens.

BTW, your employer does not determine whether you receive benefits - the State does. All your employer can do is contest your eligibility.

You may want to make a complaint with your State's equal rights division or the federal EEOC about the sexual harassment.
 

commentator

Senior Member
Under these circumstances, I would definitly file an EEOC complaint against these people.

That is totally separate from, and has nothing to do with the unemployment system and whether you will be approved for benefits. In the best case scenario, it will take months and months for anything to come of an EEOC appeal. Unemployment is the first order of business.

When you file the claim, the unemployment claims taker will ask you, "Why did you quit your job?" and
"What was the last incident that precipitated you quitting the job?" and "What did you do to try to work this situation out before you quit?"

In other words, when the guy comes in and does the nasty things he did, what did you do? Did you tell him you were offended, did you report him to management (even if you felt that management was not going to be sympathetic). Did you decide to quit one night while at home and just fed up, or was there something really stressful said or done to you at work?

Okay, if you are going to say you quit your job due to sexual harrassment on the job, then lay off the "And the men were asked to do less work than the women and that just wasn't fair." Because that's just an issue that will cloud the water, it makes you sound silly and petty, and there's really no way you can document that this was a good job related reason to quit the job.

Also, that they drank on the job, used the "n" word, made fun of Asians and old people, these are just "kitchen sink" type things that you are throwing in there to say that you had a really crummy job. That won't get you unemployment. You must, to the state's level of requirement, show that you had a valid job related reason to quit the job. If you personally were being subjected to sexual harrassment, that you were taunted or that several of your male co workers did things to embarrass you, that's the only issue you need to bring up. All this extraneous stuff about how they did this, or the company wasn't supportive, or how the guys didn't do as much work are NOT things that will help you win this case in unemployment. Likewise forget sexual harrassment of other people, or how other co workers were being treated. This is not their case, it's yours only.

Concentrate on why YOU quit, when you did quit. Hopefully, there was some precipitating incident.

You'll begin filing for weeks of benefits, and an initial decision will be given. Then either party, either you or the emloyer can appeal that decision, at which time there would be a hearing about whether or not you had a good reason to quit your job and had exhausted all reasonable alternatives before quitting.
 
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mbritney45

Junior Member
Thank you very much. My only question is how do I report the incident if they saw it happen and didn't do anything to stop it or discipline the guy? The first time it happened I didn't say anything I just sat and frowned, the second time he pulled the dildo out is the day I quit because I thought he would have stopped by then. And the supervisor sits across from him and saw it go down. When I left I told her how I felt, I said 'there are things that are going on that I can't deal with anymore and no one does anything to stop them. should i come talk to you one on one', and she said 'if you are suffering so much just go'. And I said 'i want to stay but I didnt want to bother you with my complaints and now i feel its gone too far and i cant handle it anymore its unprofessional' and she said ' no its obvious you aren't happy'. So that is what I'm up against and I am really confused as to where to go from here. She basically said if I don't like what they do then I should just leave.
 

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