No Florida employee should ever have to endure an unwelcome or unwanted sexual comment at work. Furthermore, no employee should ever have to endure unwanted touching, flirting, sexual advances or sexual demands while he or she is trying to perform his or her job duties. Nevertheless, if you’ve ever had a job — regardless if you’re a male or female, and regardless if you were the victim or not — there’s no doubt that you’ve witnessed numerous instances of sexual harassment.
Here are some common sexual harassment scenarios that happen every day in Florida workplaces:
— A superior walks into the office of someone he or she manages and starts to massage the person’s shoulders. The person being massaged doesn’t want to be touched, and it makes him or her feel extremely uncomfortable. However, it’s the first time it’s happened, and the victim keeps quiet, secretly hoping that it will never happen again. But it does happen again, and the employee ends up enduring it because he or she is worried that a complaint will make things difficult at work.
— Every time a particular employee walks into the break room, there’s a group of guys making sexual jokes and talking sexually about other employees. The jokes are crude and would not be acceptable in normal company by any stretch of the means. Nevertheless, this kind of talk has become embedded and normalized in the workplace culture, even though it makes many of the employees feel very uncomfortable.
These two scenarios are clear examples of sexual harassment. They are mentioned here because they’re just the kind of sexual harassment that employees might not complain about. Other types of sexual harassment — like being asked or required by a superior to perform a sexual favor — are even more egregious.
No matter what kind of sexual harassment you’re experiencing on the job — whether it’s subtle or overt — the Law Offices of Gary A. Costales, PA, can help you make it stop. We will listen to your story, help you determine if sexual harassment is indeed happening, and advise you of your legal rights and options.
