The supervisor of a female automotive technician refused to call her by her name, instead calling her “woman” and an expletive insult throughout her entire employment, according to federal authorities.
And despite having the skills to work on vehicles, she was “given demeaning work assignments, such as cleaning and running personal errands” for her male supervisor because of her her sex, officials said.
She was one of several employees who were harassed while working at multiple Car-X Tire and Auto locations in Illinois and Iowa, leading to a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to a Feb. 8 news release.
“For example, employees regularly grabbed one male employee’s groin, butt, and chest area, and simulated sex or ‘pumped’ him from the side,” the EEOC said in the complaint filed in January 2022. “This employee was also verbally harassed with sexual comments.”
“Another male employee was subjected to physical touching, including a supervisor rubbing a hammer along his butt, and sexual comments, such as ‘you have a nice butt,’” according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
McClatchy News reached out to Monro, Inc., the owner and operator of Car-X Tire and Auto and other automotive service brands across the country. The company and its defense attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Monro has agreed to settle the lawsuit by paying $200,000 to split among four former employees, according to the release. The company must provide sexual harassment training to employees who work at the stores included in the lawsuit, and it must post a notice about the lawsuit.
Monro is also required to report “any future complaints of sexual harassment” over the next two years to the EEOC, authorities said.
“No one should be subjected to the kind of harassment these employees faced,” Gregory Gochanour, the EEOC’s regional attorney in Chicago, said in the release. “The EEOC is glad that a fair outcome was reached quickly for the victims, and we expect that this company will pay more attention to protecting all employees from sexual harassment moving forward.”
The EEOC said it attempted to reach a settlement before filing the lawsuit but was unable to do so.