The 14th Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 Is … the Horrible Harasser

In its press release announcing a recently filed sexual harassment lawsuit, the EEOC says that a New York-based housing development and property management company violated Title VII when its owner and top executive repeatedly subjected female employees to crude sexual comments, called them sexually obscene names and showed them pornography.

And, as bad as that sounds, that description barely scratches the surface of what is actually alleged to have happened in this workplace.

The complaint that the EEOC filed fills in the blanks with disgusting details about the daily barrage of unwelcome and offensive misconduct.

• • The owner made crude remarks about his sexual interests, such as: that his “dick may not always work but my tongue will”; and that he “knows how to satisfy a woman” and “likes the way they [women] taste.”
  • The owner made unwelcome and sexualized comments about female employees’ bodies, such as: telling a female employee that her body was curvy and reminded him of his wife’s body, telling another that he admired her breasts, and telling another that he “felt like a kid in a candy store,” when she bent over.
  • When angry, the owner called female employees hostile, abusive, and demeaning names, such as: “cunts.”
  • The owner repeatedly put his hand down his pants and touched his genitals while speaking to female employees.
  • The owner showed female employees pornography on his cell phone.

The women say in the complaint that this egregiously offensive misconduct happened on daily or near-daily basis, that their complaints to the company’s CFO fell on deaf ears, and that it finally compelled them to quit.

I’m speechless, other than to say that if these allegations are true, “Congratulations, Birchez Associates and Rondout Properties Management of Kingston, N.Y., you’re the 14th nominee for the worst employer of 2019!”

Thanks to Janette Levey Frisch for bringing this story to my attention.