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The Ethics of Job Discrimination

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THE ETHICS OF JOB DISCRIMINATION: SEXUAL HARASSMENT Student Name:
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In one of the largest sexual harassment verdict in California, the Kroger Company was stunned to learn that the company had to pay for the mistakes of one of the employees of the Ralphs’ supermarket chain they had just acquired. The Kroger Company, which operates 2500 supermarkets in 32 states, had acquired the Ralphs’ chain of supermarkets when they bought Fred Meyer Inc. in 1998. On April 5th, 2002, The Kroger Company- with a well known written policy forbidding sexual harassment and zero tolerance for sexual harassment since the 1980s-was asked to pay compensatory and punitive damages totaling $30.6 million for the sexual harassment case against Roger Misiolek, a Ralphs’ employee.
Problem Statement
Six women who were employees of a Ralphs’ branch in California were accusing Roger Misiolek, a Ralphs’ store manager, of sexually harassing them between 1995 and 1996. The six women, namely Dianne Gober, Sarah Lange, Terri Finton, Peggy Noland, Suzanne Pipiro and Tina Swann filed a harassment suit against Ralphs in 1996.
Analysis
During the trial that began in 1998, the six women testified that immediately Roger Misiolek took over a store manager in 1995, he began harassing them by touching inappropriately, verbally abusing with profanity, shoving shopping carts at them and throwing, among other things, objects like phones, clipboards, and even a mailbag. The women testified that they although they had forwarded complaints about Misiolek’s behavior to the management, he was not disciplined. Moving the complaining women to different store branches was not a satisfactory action. The women produced evidence that Misiolek had more than 80 other harassment claims against him. During the 1998 first phase of the trial, Ralphs was found liable for gender

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