The study found that 68% of employees who file sexual harassment complaints face some form of reprisal by their employer. 65% lost their jobs within a year. At the same time, less than a quarter of those complaints resulted in any financial compensation.
Donald Tomaskovic-Devey is director of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst Center for Employment Equity and coauthor of the report. He said the consequences of filing legal complaints often outweigh what little financial compensation they result in.
“Three quarters of people don’t get any monetary settlement at all. The median among that quarter who get anything get less than $10,000.” Tomaskovic-Devey said.
He said legal action rarely results in compensation for the harassment or the frequent loss of work. And, researchers also found that just 12% of all charges result in agreements to change workplace practice, which is what most employees want.
“They want to change the workplace so that it’s better for their coworkers,” Tomaskovic-Devey said. “If you go down the legal route, you’re likely not to be able to solve the problem.”
The report analyzed over 46,000 harassment claims sent to federal and state regulators, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Those cases represent just a small fraction of all sexual harassment incidents that occur in the workplace.
While individuals face risks in filing complaints, researchers said the EEOC is taking sexual harassment charges seriously.
This report comes from the New England News Collaborative, eight public media companies including Rhode Island Public radio coming together to tell stories of a changing region, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
