Summer Jobs Often Lead To Harassment

Posted by Ross Arrowsmith on Tuesday, July 14th 2009 under Workplace Violence

In Massachusetts alone it is estimated that 40,000 teenagers will find summer work, and for many, that will bring with it a dark side – sexual harassment or even sexual assaults.

NewsCenter 5’s Rhondella Richardson reported Friday that was the case for college student Audrey Powers, who took her first job in fast food at the age of 17.

“It started out with mainly grabbing our breasts or buttocks,” she said. “It escalated into having us take our shirts off. We would have to do more work if we weren’t going along with his games.”

Tips For Teens, Warning Signs For Parents
Kelly Browne, now an adult employed as a teacher, said she still recalls lewd actions by the manager at her first job at a Pembroke printing company when she was 16.

“He, you know, would make comments about my dress. Or when he was sitting up on the desk I could feel him looking down my dress,” she said. “He would talk about a client that was coming in, and what great legs she had, and how he hoped she would be wearing a miniskirt.”

“But at the time I loved my job. I didn’t think I could say anything to anyone above me,” recalled Browne.

Those stories, said Brandeis University researcher E.J. Graff, are stunningly typical. Her study found that more than 200,000 teenagers each year are sexually assaulted on the job in the United States.

“They start with, ‘What are you doing sexually? What do you and your boyfriend do?’” she said. “I’ve got cases from Burger King, McDonald’s, Kmart, Java Juice.”

After touching or outright assaults in the back room, Graff said attackers will often say, “I was just kidding. Why are you so upset?”

The problem for many teenagers boils down to a lack of confidence or an unwillingness to speak up. In Boston, training sessions run by MassCOSH offer teenagers information about what is illegal, what to do about it, and how to stand up for peers.

Graff said young workers most at risk of being victimized are single women between the ages of 16 and 24 working in a low-status job.

She said the finding that shocked her the most was “how little teenagers understood they had any rights.”

“I wasn’t sure what was OK,” said Powers. “What was just sexual banter in the workplace, and I didn’t want to be the only one who was causing a problem.”

That’s just one reason these crimes are vastly underreported. Few cases make it to a courtroom, and Graff said most that do often end with a settlement and a confidentiality clause — so future hires have no idea what happened.

Looking back, Browne wishes she had reacted differently.

“I wish I had said, ‘You know this is sexual harassment, and it’s against the law.’ If I had used those powerful words that might have done it,” she said.

Powers said she “should have gone to the police immediately. But I thought I wasn’t going to be able to have a job if I was complaining.”

Because teenagers may not have the knowledge or the courage to speak up, some employment attorneys are calling for laws to be changed to hold employers more accountable when a teen is harassed on the job.