Employees at Wisconsin companies and other businesses around the country expect that they will be given adequate tools to accomplish their jobs. They need to be given access to necessary information and receive timely approvals to proceed with their duties. Employees may suspect that they are being discriminated against if they see patterns of withholding information or access. An information technology manager in another state has requested an investigation of her employer following assertions of workplace discrimination and harassment.
The Office for Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination received a complaint from a former senior project manager at a university’s IT department. The complaint alleged that the manager experienced gender discrimination on the job. Included in the complaint were emails, meeting notes, budget numbers and other documentation to support her claims of harassment and discrimination.
Another employee in the department echoed the project manager’s complaint. She had also experienced difficulty in obtaining clearance for certain access levels. There were often excuses cited for not granting permissions to the female employees, but not for the men in the group. The other employee who had come forward reported that she had complained to the university’s Human Resource department. However, she was labelled as aggressive, and her complaints were minimized.
The project manager states that the prescribed process for handling these types of complaints was not followed. The process specifies that an employee with a complaint should not be retaliated against. However, she notes that after she filed her complaint, she was moved to another position. Furthermore, those managers named in the complaint would no longer meet with her. She claims that was retaliated against for making the claims of harassment.
Wisconsin employees have the right to notify management if they are experiencing workplace discrimination or another type of harassment on the job. While workers should not face retaliation for bringing the behavior to light, it can still occur. A knowledgeable employment law attorney can assist employees who are dealing with any discrimination, harassment or retaliation.
Source: dailycal.org, “UC Berkeley IT worker accuses campus of gender discrimination“, Elena Aguirre, Feb. 27, 2018