A local janitorial business is facing a law suit after 20 employees claim they were sexually harassed by their supervisors. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing ABM Janitorial Services and ABM Industries incorporated on behalf of the alleged victims.
We spoke to one woman who says she has worked for ABM Janitorial services for years, and for years, says her supervisors harassed her and other women she worked with. "They touched me, my supervisor touched me, he made me do things I didn't want to do," said the woman in spanish. she claims she was fired for complaining too much. In 2007, she says she went back to work for the company, but the harassment continued.
Christine Park-Gonzalez with the EEOC says in a lot of the cases the harassment turned to assault. “They were sexually harassed via sexual comments, requests for sexual favors. They were groped, they were touched, one of them was even raped,” said Park-Gonzalez. She says there are no criminal charges on the alleged rape because the woman was scared to go to police.
According to the EEOC, the supervisor who is accused of rape quit his job with ABM in 2007. The eeoc says he is a registered sex offender due to a previous rape conviction.
We tried to contact ABM about the alleged assaults. We called the local office for comment but no one answered and when we went down to the office, no one was there. The sign said they'd be back after two so we tried again, but that time the sign said the office would open again at five. Someone with corporate returned our calls later in the day, but he didn't want to comment on the suit because it is too involved and, saying he didn't understand why it is news at this time.
The suit was filed in 2007, and a pretrial date is set for this June.
Park-Gonzalez says they've seen a huge increase in reports of sexual harassment lately. In 2008 there were 22 reports in the central valley, last year there were 50. She says for the most part the women who are being taken advantage of are immigrants.
If you have a complaint of sexual harassment you can call the EEOC's Fresno office that covers the central valley. Their number is 559-487-9757, or 1-800-669-4000. Their services are free and they say they do not question whether or not a person is documented.
