You are a hospitality senior manager who has been appointed to a committee to address risk management at your respective company. You have been asked to address the following series of incidents involving one of your housekeeping staff members that has o

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Your hotel employee was born in Brazil and speaks Portuguese as her native language . She claimed she was harassed based primarily on four incidents . In one , she claimed to have overheard co-workers using the terms pieto (Portuguese for breast . In fact , they were using the Croatian word for chicken (pronounced petal . In another incident she claims an employee gave her the finger ' while no one else

was looking . She claims that she was groped on several separate occasions by a certain male employee while she was removing a box from a shelf , and offered to grant her request for a shift change if she would go out with him . She refused and she was denied the change . She also heard employees using profanity or sexually explicit language , although the comments were not addressed to her . She further asserted that the cashier at the hotel newsstand recommended an article about breast implants marked by a folded page

The employee complained to her supervisor about each of these incidents but her supervisor said she was oversensitive and that she is reading too much into these words and actions

INTRODUCTION

Employment law is a broad area including all areas of the employer /employee relationship except the negotiation process covered by labor law and collective bargaining . Many employment laws (e .g , minimum wage regulations ) were enacted as protective labor legislation . Other employment laws take the form of public insurance , such as unemployment compensation (Source : LII / Legal Information Institute . HYPERLINK "http /www .hg .org /employ .html " http /www .hg .org /employ .html

Sexual harassment continues to be a significant issue and a claim that is frequently litigated in the workplace . In a recent survey of 612 human resource (HR ) directors nationwide , 93 percent reported that their organization had been named as a defendant in an employment-related lawsuit during the last five years . Of these reported cases , 50 percent involved claims of employment discrimination with a significant percentage involving sexual harassment . HR personnel continue to report that the harassment exacts a heavy toll in the workplace resulting in a high turnover , absenteeism , reduced cooperation among coworkers time-consuming investigations and , at times , extremely negative publicity . Given these facts , employers should be vigilant in recognizing and preventing workplace harassment ( HYPERLINK "http /pview .findlaw .com /view /2376032_1 ?channel CCC " Dykema Gossett PLLC . Sexual Harassment : An overview . 1998 . Find Law Library

LEGAL ISSUES OF THE CASE

This female hotel employee , a Brazilian by birth but Portuguese speaking complained of sexual harassment acts committed in several instances by some of her co-workers . She has brought the matter to the attention of her Supervisor who allegedly did not do anything about her complaint

Was the act of the Supervisor in this case tantamount to a denial of the employee 's right to be heard , in violation of the Civil Rights Act as enshrined in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court

Was it proper for...