Monday, November 03, 2014

Real Life Imitates the Movies

Remember the movie "Disclosure" starring Demi Moore and Michael Douglas? It was about a female executive who sexually harrassed a male employee. It allegedly has happened in real life...in radio, no less. From Tom Taylor's NOW column this morning...

Fired male staffer sues Cox for alleged sexual harassment by his female supervisor. Michael D. Koerner says Cox Media Group “was fully aware of this woman’s misconduct as regards to over-sexualizing the workplace, and took no action to stop it.” Lawsuits like this depend on specific incidents to document a “hostile working environment,” and here are some of Koerner’s examples – That at the Houston Rodeo in 2011, “Mr. Koerner observed [GSM Jaymie Kosina] straddling a male client in the Cox suite and grabbing the man’s buttocks.” Later that evening, Koerner claims that Kosina “suddenly hugged him and tried to kiss him on the mouth.” He says he reminded her that he’s married and that his wife was in treatment for breast cancer. There was at least one other incident of an attempted kiss, during a corporate training meeting in Atlanta. The suit claims that things got strange “almost as soon as he began his employment.” That Kosina ”constantly discussed her breasts and would massage them.” One time, she allegedly flashed him on the way to a client’s grand opening, and Koerner says he told a co-worker about it, who supposedly reported it to corporate. Koerner says that shortly after that episode, Kosina and market manager Mark Krieschen began to question his sales results and “commitment to the team.” Then there was an alleged “retaliatory termination.”