When most New Yorkers think about workplace sexual harassment, they think of attractive young women being touched or harassed by much older, male bosses. While there certainly are women being harassed in situations such as those, any type of sexual advance or harassment by any kind of colleague and against any type of person can be considered sexual harassment. This means that men can be victims, older people can be victims, and so on.
Sexual harassment is unacceptable and against the law. Moreover, if a coworker is harassing his or her colleagues, the employer has a responsibility to stop the negative behvaior and correct the situation. If it doesn’t, it can also be held responsible for creating a hostile work environment.
That is likely what a 71-year-old is accusing the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of doing in his sexual harassment lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court. The former MTA employee has said that he complained to his bosses about his direct supervisor being sexually inappropriate with him at work, but they told him not to pursue it further.
According to the lawsuit, the supervisor would talk to his genitalia with the 71-year-old in the room. He also tried to get the former employee to go on a vacation with him to the Caribbean, that he would make unwanted comments about his “beautiful hands” and that he would rub his buttocks on the man’s pelvis.
The claimant also says that he was fired once his direct supervisor heard that he had complained about him to upper management.
Source: New York Post, “Man sues MTA claiming boss ‘pleasured himself’ in office,” Julia Marsh, May 1, 2014
