Word: eeoc
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Mitsubishi's outraged and outsized response to the charges has sensationalized the case. Led by a brash general counsel, Gary Schultz, about 2,000 workers--given the day off for the purpose--demonstrated with supporters outside the Chicago offices of the EEOC last week. "Two, four, six, eight," they chanted, "we're here to set the story straight." "Do we have sex on the line?" one man shouted. "Do we get naked on the line?" "No!" the crowd roared. Some waved placards; others unfurled a long banner that read EEOC PLEASE STOP SLANDERING...
After repeated appeals to management and to their United Auto Workers local brought no relief, several women employees sought out Patricia Benassi, a prominent Peoria lawyer experienced in labor-relations cases, who began filing complaints with the EEOC. Almost immediately, reprisals began. One complainant found her car scratched and defaced; another was forced off the road as she drove home from work. Anonymous callers made such threats as, "You better watch your back, bitch...
After the EEOC investigators interviewed more than 100 current and former female employees of M.M.M.A., the commission in May 1994 declared that the evidence available and the lack of a significant response by the company were just cause for a "commissioner's charge." This gave it broader powers of subpoena, access to the plant and the right to interview employees privately. Arriving at the plant, the EEOC team was astounded to find that the company seemed unconcerned. No one had even bothered to remove the widespread sexual graffiti...
This month, fed up with Mitsubishi's stonewalling, the commission brought suit, charging that the company created "a hostile and abusive work environment" and not only failed to take appropriate action in cases where the complaints were made, but actually retaliated against the women who made them. The EEOC's suit essentially broadens the charges filed in the earlier private suit to include all female employees, past and present, who might have suffered harassment since the plant opened. That description, say EEOC investigators, could apply to more than 500 women. And under the revision of the Civil Rights...
Urging employees to speak up in defense of the company--and their jobs--Mitsubishi set up a free phone bank with numbers of local news outlets and the names, biographies and phone numbers of elected representatives. Nor was the company subtle in orchestrating the demonstration outside the EEOC offices. Workers were given a choice: they could sign up for a free round trip to Chicago (on more than 50 Mitsubishi-chartered buses), a box lunch and the approbation of their bosses--or they could report to the idled plant, clearly identifying themselves as disloyal...