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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Report: Women Suffer, Companies Pay Price for Sexual Harassment

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Friday, October 26, 2018   

HELENA, Mont. – The global MeToo movement has put a spotlight on sexual harassment and assault, and a new report from the Institute for Women's Policy Research calculates the economic impacts in the workplace.

Elyse Shaw, the report's co-author, says harassment places a significant burden on companies, which end up with big legal bills, and she says it's also a big reason why women earn pennies on the dollar compared with their male counterparts.

"Their wages being decreased if they have to change careers or change jobs due to sexual harassment that they experience, it can have a big impact on women,” she explains. “But it's also costly to employers. With turnover costs and all of these other factors, it's a burden on both employers and the women who are working for them."

Shaw says harassment also leads to increased absences, low morale and lost productivity.

While it's estimated that just 10 percent of incidents are formally reported, Shaw says as many as 8 in 10 women experience sexual harassment in their lifetimes.

Victims of repeated harassment are at higher risk for clinical depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and long-term physical health problems.

The report found that undocumented workers, people who work in isolation and women who rely on tips – especially restaurant workers paid below the regular minimum wage – are at increased risk for harassment.

Shaw points to the Hands Off, Pants On initiative by Chicago's hospitality workers as one way people have organized to demand protections.

"Unions actually have a huge role to play to institute their own policies and procedures, to kind of augment the systems that may be in place in the workplace, or to fill in the gaps that might be missing for those workers on different jobs," she states.

The report's recommendations include surveying employees to find out if harassment is a problem, and adopting comprehensive anti-harassment policies including multiple ways for workers to report violations.

Reporting systems should be tested to make sure they're working, and discipline for perpetrators should be prompt and consistent.


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