Farm work is often very up close and personal. It’s less formal than in many other work settings, and employees tend to become very close as team members. These characteristics are usually positive but they can also turn bad if harassment shows up. I talked with a farm employer recently about a situation where a male worker was trying to get the attention of a female co-worker. He thought he was having fun and being playful by blocking passage of his co-worker, she didn’t find it to be fun, this was clearly the beginning of a sexual harassment scenario. The employer stepped in, addressed the unacceptable behaviors with the male employee, and put a stop to it. He also documented the incident in writing and put it in his employee file. Harassment of any kind is not fun for the victim, and it’s critical for employers to deal with it immediately.
The recently passed New York State budget includes new regulations addressing sexual harassment in the workplace that take place in October 2018. The regulations call for several specific items in employer policies and mandates that all employers provide sexual harassment training and reporting procedures in the workplace. The legislation also calls for the New York State Department of Labor to develop a model sexual harassment policy and training program for employers to adopt. Read more about it from the law firms Fisher Philips here and Proskauer here.
Workplace harassment, whether sexual or not, has no place on the farm. It destroys employee morale, wrecks careers, and exposes the employer to significant legal risk. Ag employers, take a hard look at the culture in your business and take steps to eliminate harassment. These steps will include at least the following:
- Adopt an anti-harassment policy.
- Provide anti-harassment training for all employees.
- Intervene immediately and seriously to stop any harassing behaviors.
For further reading:
- New York Employers Must Provide Sexual Harassment Training from the Society for Human Resource Management.
- Facts About Sexual Harassment from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- Examples of Sexual and Non-Sexual Harassment from the balancecareers.com
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By Richard Stup, Cornell University. Permission granted to repost, quote, and reprint with author attribution.
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