EEOC Secures $2m Harassment Settlement from Blockbuster

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) announced last week that a federal court had approved a consent judgment entered into by the EEOC and Blockbuster, Inc.  As part of the judgment, the company agreed to pay over $2 million in damages to settle a lawsuit filed by the EEOC for sexual harassment, discrimination based on sex, race and national origin, and retaliation.  The EEOC reported that the offenses occurred at a distribution center in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and were targeted at temporary employees during 2004 and 2005.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in 2007, the EEOC charged that male supervisors engaged in harassment of a class of seven female employees, four of whom were Hispanic.  The EEOC listed the incidents of harassment as including “repeated requests for sexual favors; yelling; insults; threats; unwelcome sex-related questioning; offensive racial remarks; touching women’s intimate body areas; and other discriminatory conduct.”

Sexual harassment and discrimination violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and are serious problems in the American workplace.  “This case should act as a warning to all employers who use staffing agency personnel,” said EEOC Philadelphia Regional Attorney Debra M. Lawrence, whose jurisdiction includes Maryland. “Employers who are customers of staffing agencies have a responsibility to protect their temporary workers from unlawful discrimination. Too frequently, such employers fail to create systems to prevent and detect abuse of temporary workers and fail to respond forcefully to it. Those employers do so at their peril.”