Comment by anon1252

Employers have a duty of care to protect employees from harm in the workplace, and that includes protection from sexual abuse.

A lot stuff that counts as sexual harassment in the work place is not a crime.

You don't sue people who perpetrate crimes, you prosecute them. You're asking the victims of sexual harassment to persuade police to investigate and prosecutors to prosecute, and we know that they won't because we know they already don't.

You're also saying that no action can be taken without meeting the very high criminal burden of proof - that this thing happened beyond all reasonable doubt. That's going to leave harassers free to continue.

Maybe you just meant that sexual harassment is unlawful and employees have an existing remedy through civil courts, but this would be pisspoor management. If your company employs people who reduce productivity of others in the workforce by sexually harassing them it's in the organisation's best interest to manage those people so they stop the harassment or leave the company.

I think you're being too rigid. There are situations where one employee forces themselves on another at the christmas party. In that situation obviously the right call is to report it to the police and to have a disciplinary process internally for gross misconduct. But there's a million smaller examples of harassment that just need to be tackled by the organization. For example, if a man repeatedly makes comments about a woman's appearance, there needs to be a process where the woman can report that, be heard and have the issue addressed - it may be as simple as the employee's boss pulling the into a room and saying "stop being a creep". Not everything is solved by law suits.

However, obviously if things do escalate, access to the law should be guaranteed and the binding arbitration should clearly be dropped.

Prosecution is one method of deterring thieves from robbing my store blind. I have also tried locked doors, security cameras and not leaving the store unattended.

I like your argument that it is cheaper to just let people rob me blind and then burn time and energy catching them, prosecuting time, and hoping for a conviction as a deterrent.

With any luck using your system crime will magically disappear on it’s own.

I am going to put my fingers in my ears now and make noises and ignore the worlds problems. It is certainly easier to not take responsibility. Good advice.

> There shouldn't be a "process" set by Google when it comes to sexual harassment, employees should be able to sue, that's the process,

Except that, under the law, the company’s response (including the absence or inadequacy of any process) to certain situations is part of what determines if they are sexual harassment.

> sexual harassment is a crime

No, it's not, and if it were the process would not be for employees to sue, because crimes are prosecuted exclusively by the government in the U.S. legal system.

forced arbitration has been the bane of combatting anything legally. it basically is now used to completely remove any employee or consumer ability to sue. This is used for literally everything. Every employer does this now, every software product, every hardware.

I don't understand how this is even acceptable.

I'm not trying to troll you, but it's a voluntary "denial of justice". No one compels or coerces people to seek employment there. They apply, go through several interviews, and then voluntarily agree to whatever it is they agree to before day #1 of work. As long as people are willing to work there under XYZ conditions, people will continue to work there under XYZ conditions.

>employees should be able to sue, that's the process,

See eh. Does money fix the issue "biotic 1 told biotic 2 'nice lady bits why don't you sit on my man bits' now they want 2 amounts of monies" how does money fix the issue? How does money repair the damage? Is money a Men in Black neuralizer? Does it selectively delete the negative emotions from the event? Is it fair that shareholders in the case of Google, or the owner in a small business where some rogue employee decided he wanted to play grabass without the owner's consent or even knowledge, to have to shell out large sums of money that won't actually undo the damage?

I don't think suing is a good solution here. If you are denied a job and have EVIDENCE it was based on your gender or sexual orientation, then suing somewhat makes sense however aside from lost wages there isn't much that would be productive here. If you sued for the actual job then everyone knows you as that person that got the job because a court of law said you get it and not necessarily because your skill and history make you the best candidate.

>sexual harassment is a crime,

Somewhat. Quid Pro Quo is a crime, not rectifying a hostile work environment (not reassigning the alleged offender, not investigating and terminating the alleged offender etc) is a crime. But biotic 1 telling biotic 2 that they have nice reproductive bits and bobs, is not an actual crime (perhaps it should be?)

>they can't sue because Google force them into arbitration, which should be illegal for an employer to do that to an employee IMHO. this is a denial of justice.

Money /= justice. If someone demands sexual favors, or regularly says sexually explicit things to you, a check doesn't give you justice, especially if it's from the employer.

Take Google as an example. Google is owned, in part, by likely hundreds of millions of people (index funds, direct stock purchase, etc). Google has a board, it has various rungs of corporate management, then more localized management. Chances are none of those people have said "hey Don Draper, make sure you grab Megan's ass today when she comes in to dictate for you today and tell her what you want to do to her on your desk" and while Google does need to do something to employees that think such behavior is acceptable, and carry it out, why should they have to cut a check for hundreds of thousands, or millions of dollars, for something a rogue employee did?

Perhaps there should be some sort of penalty/tax that companies, when sufficient evidence is found to support a claim, they have to pay to an NGO that deals with rights equality and safe workspaces? Money doesn't undo the situation so I don't think the victim should be seeking large sums in damages, companies (unless supporting the behavior) shouldn't be penalized for large sums of money because of an employee that has free agency, however if an incident is reasonably provable perhaps they should have to cut a check, based on some sort of scale, say 100k$ for a company like Google to a regularly audited group that provides resources for victims to reach out to for both any required treatment and for help dealing with any potential workplace discrimination as a result of their claim.