MEDIA SPOTLIGHT – “It may be hard to believe that there are still workplaces where pornographic magazines lay about and sexually suggestive toys and trinkets are visible,” writes Sid Steinberg of the Legal Intelligencer. 

“Yet, in the case of Vollmar v. SPS Technologies… we are reminded that such workplaces still exist and arguing that this is just a ‘blue collar’ environment” does not excuse sexual harassment.

Steinberg writes about the case involving Judith Vollmar, who started working as a machine operator with SPS Technologies in 1989.  SPS manufactures performance fasteners and “has a 90% male workforce,” Steinberg writes.

“Evidence in the case indicated that there were a number of sexually suggestive signs in the workplace as well as a few toys and trinkets in public areas that related to parts of the female anatomy,” Steinberg writes in the Legal Intelligencer.

“Additionally, there was a Penthouse pornographic magazine visible in the workplace.”

Vollmar also alleged that she was routinely referred to in a typically offensive sexist term and “was regularly told that she did not know what she was talking about ‘because she was a woman,’” the Legal Intelligencer reports.

In July 2013, Vollmar asked to be moved from first shift to third shift “because a particular employee was staring at her while she was working. She believed that this employee’s staring was, at times, sexual.”

Vollmar was assigned to third shift, which was supervised by a man with whom she had had an “on again, off again” romantic relationship for years.  

When SPS determined that the pair had resumed their romantic relationship and that the supervisor had listed Vollmar as his emergency contact and life insurance ­beneficiary, the company terminated the supervisor and suspended Vollmar for 10 days for violating the company’s code of conduct.

Vollmar sued, claiming that she had been sexually harassed and retaliated against in violation of Title VII and the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act, according to the Legal Intelligencer.

The court determined that the environment in which Vollmar worked contained harassment that was “severe or pervasive.”

SPS argued that “a ‘reasonable person of the same sex’ would not have found the environment harassing because of the ‘blue collar’ nature of the workplace.”

However, the court strongly rejected the assertion that the “dismissive description of ‘blue collar’ should serve as a panacea pass for sexist or offensive conduct in the workplace.”

“The lesson of this case is simple,” Steinberg concludes.  “Sexual or sexist behavior has no place in the work environment, regardless of whether the employee is working on an oil rig or in a bookstore.”

Editor’s Note: Articles in MEDIA SPOTLIGHT are excerpts from publications that show the industry what the public is reading or hearing about fasteners and fastener companies.