OAKLAND — Goodwill Greater East Bay and the nonprofit affiliate it created to help give people job training will pay $850,000 to eight former and current employees to settle a sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The lawsuit, filed by the EEOC in 2016, alleged that six female janitors who worked at night at the Oakland Federal Building were regularly sexually harassed by their direct supervisor. When two managers expressed support for the women’s claims, the suit alleged, they were retaliated against and disciplined. One manager resigned.
The janitors worked for Calidad Industries, Inc., a nonprofit that Goodwill’s East Bay division created in 1989 to provide employment and job training to people with physical and mental disabilities.
“I was only 19 years old when I worked at Calidad — it was my first job, and I enjoyed being able to earn my own money,” said former employee Crystal Edwards, in a news release from the EEOC. “But after my boss put his arms around me, I did not feel safe at work. My complaints were ignored.”
Another employee, Phyllis Sloan, said she reported the harassment immediately but “nothing changed,” so she went to the EEOC.
“I just wanted justice, so that other disabled workers know that they don’t have to put up with harassment from their bosses,” Sloan said in the news release from the EEOC.
After an initial investigation and an unsuccessful attempt to reach a settlement out of court, the EEOC filed suit against Goodwill Greater East Bay in December 2016.
The settlement requires Goodwill and Calidad to pay $850,000 to the eight claimants, according to the EEOC.
“The #MeToo movement illustrates that sexual harassment impacts people across industries, from white collar to blue collar work, across class, race, age, gender and abilities,” said the EEOC’s San Francisco district director William Tamayo, in a statement. “In this case, there were many factors that contributed to the vulnerability of these janitors — all were African-American, many were young females new to the workplace, with disabilities, working the isolated night shift. Employers must take proactive measures to stop predators who would abuse their power over vulnerable workers.”
Jim Caponigro, who joined Goodwill Greater East Bay as CEO in 2016, said in an interview that Goodwill has been working with the EEOC and on its own to establish a better culture and better procedures than it had in 2012, when the harassment claim first surfaced.
Since then, he said, Goodwill has restructured Calidad and implemented an employee advocate position. In 2016, it started a hotline run by a third-party so employees who are uncomfortable reporting harassment or other issues to their immediate supervisors can call the hotline. Caponigro said the EEOC has also asked Goodwill to get additional training on harassment and disability for employees and managers, which he said the organization will do with the help of an outside firm.
Caponigro said that none of the managers present in 2012 when the incidents were reported are currently working for the organization.
The current team of leaders, he said, takes the allegations “very seriously.”
“Safety is our highest priority,” he said.
The settlement requires Goodwill and Calidad to revise their complaint and investigation procedures, hire a consultant to monitor responses to future complaints, and report to the EEOC about adherence to the settlement’s terms, according to the EEOC.