Blacks, women charged equipment maker with harassment
August 13, 2003
CHICAGO, Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar was hit by two federal discrimination lawsuits on Wednesday charging it permitted harassment of some black and women employees at two Illinois plants.
THE U.S. EQUAL Employment Opportunity Commission said the two lawsuits, which were filed after negotiations with the company proved futile, will seek compensatory and punitive damages and court injunctions barring future discrimination and require measures to prevent recurrences.
In one case referring to events in 2000 and 2001, three black employees of Caterpillar’s Joliet facility were whistled at “as if they were dogs, and management refused to act on complaints about the practice,” an EEOC statement said.
The agency said Caterpillar management offered an excuse that one of the employees involved in the alleged whistling “had a sinus problem.”
The other case, involving the company’s Aurora plant, an unspecified number of female employees were subjected to “sexually offensive propositions and comments and unwelcome inappropriate physical touching” by a male supervisor.
When the women complained, they were fired.
“In these cases, some of the excuses given by management for not taking corrective action were virtually as insulting as the original harassment and compounded the problem, as did the company’s rush to retaliate,” EEOC attorney John Hendrickson said.
Caterpillar issued a statement saying there was “no merit” to the allegations and that it would “vigorously” defend itself. The company said it did not tolerate harassment or discrimination and it has avenues to report and investigate incidents.
The Chicago office of the EEOC has previously settled similar lawsuits targeting Illinois plants of Japanese-owned carmaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and Scottsdale, Arizona-based soap maker Dial Corp.
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