Harassment

California state and federal laws require employers to provide a work environment free from sexual harassment and intimidation or harassment based on race, sex, gender, age, disability, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or any other protected basis. Companies must not tolerate such harassment of their employees, and also must protect employees from such harassment by non-employees in the workplace of which they become aware, such as harassment by the company’s clients, contractors, vendors, guests, etc.

Some examples of harassment include, but are not limited to, qualifying ethnic slurs, racial jokes, sexual remarks and other offensive and unwelcome conduct (such as touching or the display of sexually or racially offensive written or visual material) that interferes with an employee’s work performance or creates a hostile or intimidating work environment. Basing an employment decision (such as hiring, promotion, retention or compensation) on whether an employee accepts sexual advances is also a form of sexual harassment.

Sexual harassment involves unwanted sexual advances or visual, verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. It encompasses many forms of offensive behavior, including gender-based harassment of a person of the same sex as the harasser. The following is a partial list of examples of sexual harassment:

• Unwanted sexual advances.
• Offering employment benefits in exchange for sexual favors.
• Making or threatening reprisals after a negative response to sexual advances.
• Visual conduct that includes leering, making sexual gestures or displaying of sexually suggestive objects or pictures, cartoons or posters.
• Verbal conduct that includes making or using derogatory comments, epithets, slurs or jokes.
• Verbal sexual advances or propositions.
• Verbal abuse of a sexual nature, graphic verbal commentaries about an individual’s body, sexually degrading words used to describe an individual, or suggestive or obscene letters, notes or invitations.
• Physical conduct that includes touching, assaulting or impeding or blocking movements.