Sexual harassment in the workplace violates workers' rights and creates a hostile work environment. Employees who have been victims of sexual harassment suffer mentally, physically and often financially from such abuse.

Forms of sexual harassment include inappropriate touching and demands for sex as a requirement of the job. When an employee is fired in retaliation for refusing sexual advances it is considered workplace discrimination.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes sexual harassment in the workplace unlawful. Retaliation against employees who complain about sexual harassment further violates the law. Employers who allow their employees to be sexually harassed and those who fire employees for complaining about such conduct face serious consequences.

The EEOC recently settled a sexual harassment and retaliation case against four related construction companies in Louisiana: Brand Energy & Infrastructure Services, Inc., Brand Services, LLC, Brand Energy Solutions, LLC, and Brand Scaffold Services, LLC.

The lawsuit stemmed from a complaint made by a former employee, who said that her male supervisor repeatedly made verbal sexual advances towards her and touched her in a sexual manner. She also complained that he exposed his genitals to her even though she rejected his advances.

Furthermore, she claims that he demanded that she have sex with him and told her that, if she did not, she would lose her job. Subsequent to her refusal to have sex with him, she was in fact fired from the company.

The settlement requires the company pay the former employee $100,000 as a result of the sexual harassment and her subsequent firing. Effectively, she was put in the terrible position of having to suffer the abuse of being sexually harassed or face being unemployed, a situation that she hopes to help others avoid by setting this precedent.

As a condition to the settlement, the company will also be required to implement training for their 6,500 employees about sexual harassment in the workplace. Moreover, the company will be required to report all accusations of sexual harassment and retaliation to the EEOC for a period of two years.

Hopefully, this will send a clear message to this and other employers that sexual harassment in the workplace will not be tolerated.

Source: EEOC Press Release, "Major Construction Firm to Pay $110,000 to Settle EEOC Suit for Sexual Harassment, Retaliation," February 23, 2011