One of the largest apple producers in the United
States has been placed under a temporary restraining order (TRO) filed
by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the agency
announced today. The federal agency was motivated by the immediate
danger of “substantial and irreparable injury” to class members and
potential witnesses in the EEOC’s sexual harassment suit against
Cowiche, Wash.-based Evans Fruit Company, which was filed at the same
time as the agency’s TRO request.
U.S. District Court Judge Lonny R. Suko has ordered the company and
all its agents to stop all retaliatory activity against those involved
and those who may become involved in the lawsuit. Under the terms of
the TRO, Evans Fruit supervisors -- including Juan Marin, Alberto
“Camello” Sanchez, and Simon Ramirez -- must avoid further contact with
class members and potential witnesses. They must immediately cease any
attempts to intimidate or tamper with current or potential witnesses,
such as paying to influence testimony.
The EEOC filed suit on behalf of three individuals and a class of
women, alleging sexual harassment by the ranch manager and crew leaders
at the grower’s Sunnyside ranch. According to the agency’s
investigation, these supervisors often singled out women for sexual
advances, with work assignments that isolated them from friends and
family members. The women were forced to quit, the EEOC charged, in
order to get away from the ongoing sexual comments, propositioning and
physical groping.
One of the workers who filed charges with the EEOC described how the
ranch manager refused to let her work on the same crew as her
15-year-old daughter, whom he then targeted with unwelcome verbal and
physical sexual attention. She said, “My daughter was just a child.
That man should not have been touching her or whispering in her ear.
There weren’t any other jobs in town, but we could not work there any
longer. I do not want what happened to my daughter to happen to anyone
else.”
Sexual harassment violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964. After first attempting to reach a settlement out of court
through conciliation, the EEOC filed the lawsuit (Case No. 10CV-03033
LRS) and applied for the temporary restraining order in U.S. District
Court for the Eastern District of Washington. The agency seeks
monetary damages on behalf of the women, training on
anti-discrimination laws, posting of anti-discrimination notices at the
work site and other injunctive relief.
EEOC Regional Attorney William Tamayo said, “Filing for a temporary
restraining order is not a common action for us. But in this case, we
saw an urgent need to do all in our power to protect the farmworkers
who participate in this case. We hope this lawsuit and the power of
the court’s restraining order will encourage workers to be able to step
forward with information about the discrimination with the knowledge
that the law protects them and their jobs.”
Tamayo urged workers who experienced sexual harassment at Evans
Fruit to contact the EEOC to determine if they qualify to be part of
the class: contact Carmen Flores at (832) 364-4190, Debra Smith at
(415) 238-3141 or May Che at (206) 498-9711. (All speak Spanish.)
“Our investigation revealed that sexual harassment at Evans Fruit
was so widespread and accepted that it became a condition of employment
for these women,” said Luis Lucero, director of the EEOC’s Seattle
Field Office. “The EEOC has filed and resolved similar lawsuits in the
Pacific Northwest last year. We hope this case will alert employers in
this industry to stop predatory sexual behavior and abuses of
supervisory power.”
Last June, EEOC filed a lawsuit against Willamette Tree Wholesale,
Inc. located in Molalla, Ore., alleging that Latina workers there were
sexually harassed, threatened, and in one case, repeatedly raped. In
October, EEOC sued Eastern Washington winery La Pianta L.C.C., which
does business as Frenchman Hills Vineyard, on behalf of a Latina worker
targeted for escalating sexual attention by the vineyard manager at its
facility in Othello, Wash. In the fall of 2009, EEOC resolved two
separate sexual harassment and retaliation suits: Wilcox Farms, which
operates dairy and egg production facilities in Oregon and Washington,
agreed to pay $260,000 to a female worker at its Aurora, Ore.,
facility, and Schiemer Farms of Nyassa, Ore., paid $14,500 to two
farmworker women who alleged being fired immediately after reporting
sexual harassment on their first day of work.