racial and non sexual harrasment

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A manager a my employment called an employee a dumb Jew, not to her, but to someone else. She approached upper management with her complaint. Their statement was that it was an offhand comment, and that if any part of the management team felt like it, they could tell the employee that they are dumb, or stupid, and there was no law that says they cant. The manager that called the employee a dumb Jew was given no punishment, and wasnt even asked to apologize to the offended employee. I am looking for some agency that deals with problems like these. The employee isnt willin to hire a personal lawyer. What can be done in this situation?

-- robert hasse (robcollins21@hotmail.com), September 28, 2003

Answers

I just started working and soon I learned that a non-white girl was discriminated againgst. Every mistake there was, it was blamed on her, even if she had no idea or no hands on the task in question. The office manager and a white co-worker would go to the boss every single time there was a problem, they would tell him that she was making all the mistakes. When I started they tried to take me into their group against this girl. I made the mistake of telling them that I could see the truth, not all the mistakes were caused by the non-white girl. Then they turned on me too. Later, I told the white co-worker that she had make a mistake on one file, which I would have to create all over again, she stormed out of the office, then came back and together with the office manager went to tell the boss that I was rude, that I called her stupid and told her that she was wasting my time and that I wanted to run the office. Of course the boss called me to punish me for being rude, I told him the truth, but I am not sure he believed me. Before that he was nice to me, but after he became different, since then he ignores me as if I do not exist, when I have a question for him, he is very cold and short. The first two weeks I worked over time authorized by the one of the owner's son (who had the authority to do so) when the office manager saw my hours she screamed and told me that I would not be paid more than the regular 80 hours because I was not authorized to work. I asked why would I not be paid the extra hours, she said that it was done that way. I told her if it would be the case even if I had no posted extra time, she said that it did not matter, that I would be paid only 80 hours. The boss was there, I asked him if I was in trouble for working extra hours, he said no and went to tell the office manager that he authorized my hours. She did not report my over time, instead paid me regular hours. When I received my paycheck I went to see the boss and asked him "didn't you authorize my overtime?" he said, "yes," I wanted to be polite and told him that there have been a mistake because my hours were not complete. He took my paycheck and went to tell the office manager to adjust my hours, the three of us agreed that they would be reported in the next pay period. The next pay period came and she did not report them again. When I confronted her, she said that I had no overtime that pay period, I explained to her that it was the over time missing from the previous period (I wanted to be very calm, I did not want any problems) She said that I had to request a written authorization from the boss. I could not believe she would be so persistent on not paying my overtime. Without me doing anything, the boss came to see her (because I have copied the memo to him too.) He apologized to me and wrote on the memo telling her to adjust my hours either by getting another check or by paying a day off I had requested.

Well, the office manager was not happy at all, she wrote a memo telling him that I already had been paid for those hours, she copied my last pay period check where it showed the payment of all the hours at regular rate, my boss believed her and came to show me the memo and the paycheck, he was quite happy with her and angry with me. I explained to him that the hours paid were at regular rate and that he had approved my overtime which would be time and a half, well we had agreed for me to get time and a half, in reality since it was a workday of 14 to 15 hours my boss knew that after 12 hours it would be double time and he told me he was not willing to pay double time. I told him that it was only the excess of 80 hours at time and a half during that pay period. When I explained to him that it was the half time what was owed to me, he seemed to realize that I was not lying to cheat the company, he told me that he would take care of that. I have not heard anything yet. I have the feeling that the office manager would do anything not to pay me the overtime. It is not a lot of money, it is the crushing feeling that she undermines my efforts making me feel unfit for the job and useless. She does everything for the white worker, covers for her all the time, whispers with her and stops when we are close by, yes, they do not even say hello to us, they give us the silent treatment and now when there is a mistake they point to the non-white girl and to me.

It is a clear case of discrimination, I am not white, the other girl is not white, and we are singled out, we get the worst treatment when we are alone, the office manager smiles and makes strangely sweet remarks about us in when strangers are present, but when we are alone she only talks to the white worker and praises her work as the best, in front of the bosses she says that the white girl does everything perfect and finds anything negative to talk about us. Her abuse, as subtle as may be has already taken its toll on the other non-white girl, but we both are silent, we are truly afraid of lossing our job or being labeled as trouble makers. I just started, I do not want to be from job to job, I have no option but to take her discrimination, I know that if I say anything, being new, I will be easy disposable, or maybe she already has made plans to get rid of me, in which case there won't be much I can do. Can I?

-- Luisa Stowe (psworkshop@aol.com), February 26, 2005.


i,m being harrased ,,, by an ethnic male ...because i,m a woman in a prodomitly male workforce...because of their religeon and beliefs,,, i,m being treated not as second class citizen but more than that,,,he has made my life hell over the last 8months,,it started when i went to my employers with a claim that he phycically abused me. and the witness that i had, was not reliable,,,it fell on deaf ears... so since then he has constantly harrased me,,,making sure that all comments,jibes,,,obstucting my work,,,making workplace not a joy to work in ,,,but a living hell...i,ve not been at work for nearly two months ...while my employers try to sort this out...i,m on amti- depressants...but because of who he is...they say they have to tread very lightly...what about my feelings ///WHY???? should he allowed to get away with this....one of their answers to deal with this ...is for me to have a chaperone in work or i be placed in another part of the workplace or transfered....why should i have to be placed in this position because they,re afraid of going down the conduct code iff they get it wrong???

-- nettie shepherd (nettiefly@fsmail.net), June 22, 2004.

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