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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 22,
2018
DOLLAR
GENERAL SETTLES EEOC
SEXUAL HARASSMENT
LAWSUIT FOR $70,000
Red Banks, Miss., Store Ignored
Complaints About Manager’s Abuse of Female Employees, Federal Agency Charged
OXFORD, Miss. – Dolgencorp, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary
of retail chain Dollar General Corporation, will pay $70,000 and provide other
relief to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced today.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, the store manager at Dollar
General’s Red Banks, Miss., store subjected a female sales associate to
unwanted sexually laced comments, text messages, and gestures. Although other
female employees had previously complained about the same manager, the
harassment continued. Dollar General continued to employ the manager for
several months after the sales associate’s initial complaint, the EEOC
said.
Such alleged conduct violates Title VII of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964. The EEOC filed suit in February 2017 (EEOC v. Dolgencorp, LLC,
d/b/a Dollar General Stores, Inc., Case No. 3:17-cv-00023-MPM-RP) in U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi at Oxford after first
attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its conciliation
process.
Besides the monetary relief, the consent decree approved by
Judge Michael P. Mills:
·
enjoins
Dollar General’s stores in the district of the Red Banks store from unlawful
sexual harassment in the future;
·
requires
mandatory sexual harassment training, with civility and bystander intervention
training, to all employees, including the district manager, store manager, and
assistant store manager;
·
requires
annual training for the store manager, district manager, regional directors and
human resource managers within the district of the Red Banks store;
·
requires
Dollar General to notify the EEOC of future sexual harassment complaints; and
·
requires
annual reporting to the EEOC during the decree’s18-month term, to include
reporting of future sexual harassment complaints and training.
“While the recent #Me Too movement has shone a light on the
prevalence of sexual harassment in the workplace, the EEOC has long remained on
the front lines litigating these types of cases on behalf of victims, including
vulnerable women in low-wage industries such as the retail, warehousing and
food services industries in the South,” said Regional
Attorney Faye Williams of EEOC’s Memphis District Office, which serves
Tennessee, Arkansas and Northern Mississippi. “The EEOC will continue to bring these lawsuits.
Employers who allow
their supervisors or managers to subject their employees to sexually harassing
behavior can expect that serious repercussions will follow.”
EEOC Trail Attorney Markeisha Savage
added, “As we have said
time and time again, having an anti-harassment policy that looks good on paper does
not satisfy federal prohibitions against sexual harassment in the workplace. In
fact, in this day and age, one would expect a corporation as large as Dollar
General to already have such a firm policy in place and seriously enforced. In addition to having an anti-harassment policy, employers must also enforce it. An unenforced anti-harassment
policy is tantamount to having no policy at all.”
Headquartered in Goodlettsville, Tenn., Dollar General
represents one of the largest discount retailers in the United States.
According to company information, it operates over 14,600 stores in 44 states
and plans to open 900 new stores in fiscal year 2018. Dollar General employs approximately 129,000 people.
The EEOC advances opportunity in the workplace by enforcing federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. More information is available at www.eeoc.gov. Stay connected with the latest EEOC news by subscribing to our email updates.
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