SEXUAL HARASSMENT AT SMYRNA
JUNKERMAN, JOHN
Sexual Harassment at Smyrna Four women have sued Nissan and sixteen current and former company employees for sexual harassment and for management's lack of action to prevent the alleged abuse. Each...
...After Caudill complained several times to management, a meeting was held...
...I dropped from 120 to ninety-eight pounds...
...Finally, she went through the "open door" to see President Marvin Runyon...
...Each suit asks $1.25 million in real and compensatory damages...
...On the receiving deck, one of Stafford's co-workers soon began making "sexual remarks and four-letter requests," she says...
...They would just laugh and humiliate me...
...I had dated my fiance for three years before we got married," she says...
...When they moved me to quality control, I had high hopes," she 'Now you're going to have to let me fuck you,' a male supervisor told a female employee...
...Some time later, however, the trouble resumed...
...The very day he was promoted, says Stafford, he "came by and said, 'Now you're going to have to let me fuck you.'" It got so bad that Stafford would drive away on her forklift at full speed when she saw him coming...
...Like Stafford, Caudill took her complaint to Runyon...
...Patricia Stafford worked as a forklift driver at Nissan's Smyrna plant from August 1982 until May 1985...
...He started in again, putting his hands on you, in front of others," she recalls...
...In a closed-circuit television address to the plant, Runyon told the employees that all of the allegations had been investigated and were untrue...
...Runyon accused the women of trying to ruin Nissan's public image, she says...
...Everyone was in shock that they would do that...
...I couldn't bend over a box without him coming up behind me and hunching me, right there, in front of everyone...
...Nissan has denied the charges...
...He backed me up against a filing cabinet, flailing his arms, and then he hit me and bloodied my nose...
...I even had a policy of not going to lunch with men...
...Again she complained to management, but without result...
...People will make awful faces and say things like, 'I can't believe you would do this to our company.' My manager went around and wished everyone a Merry Christmas, but he just looked at me with death in his eyes...
...A quality inspector since April 1984 who still works at the plant, she says she was repeatedly touched and approached sexually by a co-worker...
...Not once did I date a person at the plant...
...They make you feel so awful you could die, like you've betrayed the Nissan family," she says...
...The supervisor told her co-workers not to talk with her...
...In its court filings in response to Caudill's suit, Nissan charged that she brought on the sexual advances by "wanton" behavior...
...She first complained of sexual harassment after a supervisor repeatedly threatened to make her job difficult if she did not go out with him...
...Caudill's managers accused her of lying and said "two or three other girls who had been mistreated were also lying," she recalls...
...They told me I'd die without Nissan, but it's not true," she says...
...Then they made him a supervisor...
...J.J...
...A meeting was held in a glass-walled office with Stafford, the co-worker, and two higher-level managers...
...I talked to him for an hour and a half," she says...
...The manager "got so mad, he had spit coming from the corner of his mouth...
...Stafford has had difficulty landing a new job...
...Finally, my nerves got the best of me, and I quit...
...Eventually she eliminated all mention of Nissan when she applied for jobs...
...That just fueled his fire, because he knew he could get away with it...
...I felt like an animal...
...Caudill went to see Mary Parker, the lawyer who is handling the suits of all four women...
...One thing they can't strip me of is my dignity and self-respect...
...He told me, 'I've had trouble with you since day one,' even though they had always told me I was the best worker, even better than the men," she says...
...A friend in lower management warned her to watch her step after she was identified as a troublemaker in a management meeting...
...recalls...
...Finally," she recalls, "he came one day and grabbed me between the legs, and that was the last straw...
...He would touch me, grab me...
...I had knots in my stomach when I walked through the front gate," she says...
...You're on the black list...
...Teresa Caudill had a similar experience at the Nissan plant...
...I asked the supervisor why I was put out there in a cage, and he told me, 'Everyone knows you've had trouble...
...But they put me way off in a dark corner, in a repair-parts crib, like I was a time bomb...
...They made him apologize, for the record...
...One became extremely agitated and accused Stafford of trying to frame the man...
...At one plant, she was told she wouldn't be hired because of her problems at Nissan...
...They're frightened and they tell me, T don't know what I'm going to do.' It's happening throughout the plant...
...She notified his manager and then told the human-resources officer...
...He had her transferred from the shop floor to the receiving deck...
...After reporting the incident to the human-resources office, Stafford was again transferred...
...If I can save the heartbreak of just one other woman going into that plant, it will be worth it...
...I just pray to God it will come out in public...
...It went from bad to worse," she says...
...But three women in the paint area have complained to her of sexual harassment...
...Since she sued Nissan, Caudill has been transferred to the paint department and has not encountered problems...
...The emotional stress began to take its toll...
...This outrages Caudill...
...He seemed appalled, and he said he would take care of it...
...Because I had gone to see Runyon, I knew I was on the black list," she says...
...You're never going to go anywhere.'" During the height of her troubles, Stafford received several anonymous phone calls late at night, threatening her and her daughter...
...After Caudill sued, an announcement was made at her work-group meeting...
...I don't believe in dating people I work with...
...I looked like a walking skeleton...
Vol. 51 • June 1987 • No. 6
