Note that our discrimination and harassment training covers religion as well as race, sex, national origin, color, age, disability and other protected classifications: http://www.hrclassroom.com/content/CourseInfo/DiscriminationandHarassmentPrevention.aspx
One Communications Corp., the largest privately held
regional provider of telecommunications services in the United States,
has agreed to pay $66,000 and provide other equitable relief to settle a
religious harassment lawsuit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC).
The EEOC charged in its lawsuit that the vice president of sales
regularly subjected account executives Collin Buten, Alan Gordon and
Marc Reinstein to harassment because of their religion, Judaism, at the
company’s facility in Conshohocken, Pa. Even though the employees
complained to management about the harassment, which included
anti-Semitic remarks, the company failed to take effective remedial
measures to stop the offensive conduct. The religious harassment was so
intolerable that Gordon was forced to quit, the EEOC said in its
lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania, Civil Action No. 09-04448.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits religious
harassment at the workplace. The EEOC filed suit after first attempting
to reach a voluntary settlement.
In addition to the monetary relief to the claimants, the five-year
consent decree resolving the lawsuit enjoins the telecommunications
company from engaging in religious harassment or retaliation. The
settlement requires the company to provide training to all managers and
employees at the Conshohocken facility and to post a remedial notice.
“Unfortunately, the number of religious discrimination charges filed
with the EEOC has increased dramatically over the last decade,” said
District Director Spencer H. Lewis, Jr. of the EEOC’s Philadelphia
District Office, which oversees Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia,
Maryland and parts of New Jersey and Ohio. “This lawsuit should remind
all employers that religious harassment is not just reprehensible, it is
also illegal.”
EEOC Regional Attorney Debra Lawrence added, “We believe that this
settlement, including the injunctive relief and training requirements,
will protect all company employees from unlawful harassment by
addressing the problems that led to the lawsuit.”