Local sexual discrimination cases rose “dramatically” in the wake of the financial crisis, according to an attorney with the workplace law firm Jackson Lewis L.L.P., but some victims may have kept quiet due to worries about keeping or finding a job.
Leading up to the financial crisis, Jackson Lewis saw comparatively few gender discrimination and bias cases, according to Joseph Saccomano, a managing partner in the White Plains, N.Y. office of Jackson Lewis, which also has a Stamford office.
But that changed in 2009 and 2010, when the caseload in the area rose dramatically at his firm.
“It is almost as if we are back in the early 1990s,” Saccomano said.
Saccomano was part of a panel of experts that convened at Valbella Restaurant in Greenwich, in a roundtable organized by Westfair Communications Inc., publisher of the Fairfield County Business Journal and Westchester County Business Journal, and sponsored by Jackson Lewis L.L.P.
Panelists included Maria Imperial, CEO of the YWCA in White Plains and Central Westchester; Robi Ludwig, nationally known psychotherapist and TV contributor; Mark Richards, a technology consultant specializing in information technology assessments and governance; and Sue Stebbins, CEO of Successwaves, a brain-based coaching and consulting firm. The moderator was Elizabeth Bracken-Thompson, partner at Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.-based Thompson & Bender.
If sexual harassment claims have risen, many people remain scared about losing their jobs, Saccomano said, and the situation may have been compounded by many companies suspending training programs, causing employees not to know their rights.
“We have raised the bar on how we perform,” Richards agreed. “We have to catch up to that with training.”
Asked what advice they would give to a woman who feels she is being sexually harassed, Ludwig advised documenting the experience, going through proper channels and keeping the experience “close to the vest.”
Saccomano said that harassment incidents place the complainant in a difficult position where one”™s career may never recover. It could also have a broader impact.
“It could be very demoralizing for the entire workplace,” he said.
Besides outright bias, the panel also focused on whether women advocate for themselves effectively in the workplace, including when it comes to salary negotiations. Imperial said women need more than a mentor ”“ they should work to connect with a sponsor who will actively intervene on their behalf.
“Women may not be as good at asking for financial reimbursement because we are nurturers,” Ludwig said.
Stebbins said she was contacted recently by a financial firm in Chicago and asked about the problem of mid-career women who said they were perceived differently from men in their firms. When they asserted themselves, the women said they frequently were criticized by men at the firm.
“There are perceptions that we hold into,” Stebbins said. “We have to learn to change them, and shift direction in the workplace.”
