Employment Harassment

According to our experts, being a jerk is perfectly legal. But watch out when the boss crosses the legal line.

Harassment as it is understood in America means being treated shabbily and being written by someone who has some kind of a power over you. Mary Keating: Harassment in the workplace though is seldom illegal. You can be treated shabbily by your employer for any or no good reason because you do not fit into something. Mary Keating: If you have an employer that says you are not working fast enough, work faster, they might be harassing you, but that is not illegal harassment and no law is being broken. But it is illegal if the basis for the harassment the reason for it is your race, or your sex, your national origin, or some other prohibitive category. Rochelle Eisenberg: It can include inappropriate presence, a boss giving an employee lingerie for Christmas as opposed to a nice book. Mary Keating: Someone who is subjected to jokes of a sexual or racial nature. Usually these jokes are not truly funny. Someone who gets anonymous messages of a nasty racial nature, someone who is propositioned for sexual favors when she has made it clear that she is not interested. Rochelle Eisenberg: If a vendor comes to the front office and sexually harasses the receptionist every time he or she comes, the employer is expected to stop it. The first thing the employer needs to do to safeguard the employer's assets are to have a written policy that any employee who feels that they are the victim of harassment on-the-job should report that either to their supervisor or if they cannot go to the supervisor, for instance, if the supervisor is doing the harassing, then they should report it all the way up the chain and as soon as that occurs, there needs to be an investigation. An employer makes a big mistake when the employer says I do not believe him, I have known Joe for years, that could not have happened because; you know what, it has happened.