If you haven’t watched The Good Wife yet, I urge you to do so. Not since LA Law have I seen such an intelligent and challenging treatment of complex societal issues. I remember a specific episode of LA Law where the argument was for or against punishing an inmate (serving life without possibility of parole) with the death penalty for killing another inmate. It might have been during that very hour that I lost forever my black and white view of the world and I don’t think I’ve used the words “always” and “never” since.
The Good Wife is just as compelling, but also on personal and relationship issues. Well written, it demands you use your intelligence to sort through the complexities of the issues being addressed.
One complex, layered issue I recall was when President Nixon denied knowing about the Watergate break-in. Which was worse, the doing it or the denying it? My Lai massacre. Enron. It is a long list, and it stretches all the way into HR.
What prompted this walk down Memory Lane was a recent US Supreme Court decision and the news that retaliation is now the number one reason employees bring charges against their employers. The good news is: race discrimination is no longer the most common claim. Seriously, think about that. That has to be good news, doesn’t it? We are making progress in tolerance of racial diversity in the workplace. Well, no, the race numbers didn’t go down so much as the retaliation numbers went up. The rest of the bad news is that retaliation is even more complicated now that the Court has determined that a retaliation claim may have merit even if the original complaint (which prompted the retaliation) is not a protected activity. Huh?
I sound like I am complaining, but from what I know of the court case it sounds like retaliation for sure. Boyfriend and girlfriend worked for the same company: three weeks after the girlfriend filed a sexual harassment compliant the boyfriend was fired. The Supreme Court determined that firing the boyfriend was designed to punish the girlfriend/claimant. So, even though the boyfriend did not have a claim himself, he could still sue for retaliation. The Court did not offer an opinion on the level of relationship that would meet their criteria: good friends? Ex-lovers? Married for 30 years? How long ago did they break up? My therapist would have a lot to say about relationship individuation issues here.
A 2010 Equal Employment Opportunity investigation was over before it started when it was clear that retaliation had taken place. That’s right – the original claim did not have to be investigated because the retaliation was so blatant it, in effect, proved the claim. The physics of discrimination.
The take-away here is that the denial or retaliation can be as bad – or worse -- than the original crime. Hence my memory of Watergate. And my brother denying he picked the flowers he sweetly gave to my mom out of Mrs. Thompson’s yard.
Showing posts with label discrimination. Show all posts
Showing posts with label discrimination. Show all posts
Monday, March 14, 2011
Friday, December 24, 2010
“God Bless Us, Everyone”
Most of us know this quote, the character who states it, and in what story. It is the exclamation that assures us all’s right with the world, after all. Greed and an old sourpuss do not prevail. The statement is uncomplicated, clear, succinct – like my sister’s philosophy of life – “Just be nice to each other.” And, I hear you sigh: “If only it were that simple”.
Ok, so it isn’t. Get over it. Life is all grey when you are in the HR business. I taught a class in Sexual Harassment Prevention for Supervisors at a Valley fruit packing house last week and the owner of the company kept saying “But they won’t listen,” and “OK, but what if this happened instead . . .?” He wanted to hear a yes or no, black or white answer to situations that never are. The best I could do was to tell him his job (and that of his supervisors) was to create an atmosphere of respect and enforce it. Model it.
My favorite of his scenario/questions was this: “What if some male employees are at lunch at a restaurant and an effeminate man walks by and they call him a ‘fag’, and one of the guys at the table is a closeted homosexual: is that harassment?” I was ready with my standard HR response: “It depends.” But before I could elaborate or say “What kind of morons are you hiring, who think it’s OK to talk like that, especially in public, for God's sake?” he said it had happened at a previous job. And the guy had claimed harassment and “got some money for it”.
I often respond to a scenario like that by telling them to turn it around: pretend the person who walked by was an elderly woman, or a beautiful woman, or a person in a wheelchair. Would the morons at lunch have said one was an “old hag”, the next a “whore”, and the last a “cripple”? Certainly not. My point was that if appropriate, respectful behavior can be learned in those instances, it can be learned for all instances. We must model and demand decent behavior if we don't want to run the risk of losing “some money for it.”
New stats have been released that remind me of all the ways we find to be mean to each other. (It’s like watching Law and Order on TV – what will some maniac come up with this week?)The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has just had its three busiest years in a row. (And "that's nothin' to be proud of, Rusty").Charges in FY 2010 numbered over 99,000! I expect we'll see retaliation, race, religious, and disability discrimination top the list again this year.
Please don't dismiss these numbers by saying they are caused by new laws and/or the high unemployment rate. Yes, those things have an impact, but we let ourselves off the hook if we find solace in those excuses rather than acknowledging our duty as employers to demand that our employees be civil to each other. Besides, nobody wants to work with a bunch of Scrooges.
Ok, so it isn’t. Get over it. Life is all grey when you are in the HR business. I taught a class in Sexual Harassment Prevention for Supervisors at a Valley fruit packing house last week and the owner of the company kept saying “But they won’t listen,” and “OK, but what if this happened instead . . .?” He wanted to hear a yes or no, black or white answer to situations that never are. The best I could do was to tell him his job (and that of his supervisors) was to create an atmosphere of respect and enforce it. Model it.
My favorite of his scenario/questions was this: “What if some male employees are at lunch at a restaurant and an effeminate man walks by and they call him a ‘fag’, and one of the guys at the table is a closeted homosexual: is that harassment?” I was ready with my standard HR response: “It depends.” But before I could elaborate or say “What kind of morons are you hiring, who think it’s OK to talk like that, especially in public, for God's sake?” he said it had happened at a previous job. And the guy had claimed harassment and “got some money for it”.
I often respond to a scenario like that by telling them to turn it around: pretend the person who walked by was an elderly woman, or a beautiful woman, or a person in a wheelchair. Would the morons at lunch have said one was an “old hag”, the next a “whore”, and the last a “cripple”? Certainly not. My point was that if appropriate, respectful behavior can be learned in those instances, it can be learned for all instances. We must model and demand decent behavior if we don't want to run the risk of losing “some money for it.”
New stats have been released that remind me of all the ways we find to be mean to each other. (It’s like watching Law and Order on TV – what will some maniac come up with this week?)The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) has just had its three busiest years in a row. (And "that's nothin' to be proud of, Rusty").Charges in FY 2010 numbered over 99,000! I expect we'll see retaliation, race, religious, and disability discrimination top the list again this year.
Please don't dismiss these numbers by saying they are caused by new laws and/or the high unemployment rate. Yes, those things have an impact, but we let ourselves off the hook if we find solace in those excuses rather than acknowledging our duty as employers to demand that our employees be civil to each other. Besides, nobody wants to work with a bunch of Scrooges.
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