I'm sure the male HRC staffer in 2008 didn't think that forehead kiss, shoulder rub,

[pnwmom]

Last edited Sat Jan 27, 2018, 08:05 PM - Edit history (3)

and explicit emails were worth losing three months of pay over.

When I was harassed at work, even longer ago, I was just happy that my boss yelled at the creep and got him to stop. I would have been amazed if he'd had his pay docked.

Has anyone heard that the woman involved wasn't happy with the outcome?

ON UPDATE: From the Society on Human Resource Management.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/policies/pages/cms_000554.aspx

Discipline

Employees who violate this policy are subject to appropriate discipline. If an investigation results in a finding that this policy has been violated, the mandatory minimum discipline is a written reprimand. The discipline for very serious or repeat violations is termination of employment. Persons who violate this policy may also be subject to civil damages or criminal penalties.

[yallerdawg]

1. This is all just another example of the "higher standard" Hillary is held to.

Even though we all understand the supportive "forgiving" and "redemptive" nature Hillary has expressed regarding 'harassers' (obviously), any expectation that she would be on record as a blatant hypocrite regarding her position towards her husband and a zero-tolerance position with subordinates or acquaintances would not reflect her reasoned consistency.

Ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, we had a standard applicable to that time.

Today, we have new standards.

On the other hand, the media and others portraying this as a failing of some kind IS consistent on THEIR part - they've been doing it for three decades working on a fourth!

[loyalsister]

5. No it's an example of standard operating procedure we now see as a problem

The environment is shifting and history is being examined. This incident, Gloria Steinhem's defense of Bill Clinton, the smearing of Anita Hill reveal a participation and complicity of people with a range of identities and all political persuasions.

[yallerdawg]

7. Are you insisting we hold everyone in the past...

accountable to today's new standards?

What would those standards be?

Clinton was impeached and tried. The idiot in the White House today gets elected and receives "mulligans."

What "standard operating procedure" are you referring to?

[loyalsister]

11. The standard has been to protect powerful men

Better understanding of how women have been devalued so much involves uncomfortable truths such as the fact that even women have sold out victimized women for decades in order to protect powerful men. When we say TIMES UP, it is a reference to the past and a long overdue acknowledgement of the dirty open secret that, in the interest of protecting of powerful men, people have expected women who are their friends, families, colleagues, employees, etc to accept unwelcome sexual conduct as a matter of course and not rock the boat. It is no coincidence that families, friends, and colleagues have benefitted from protecting men who have been chronic offenders of sexual misconduct in varying degrees.

If we are ever going to sincerely address what has been going on unchallenged, in plain sight and behind the scenes, honestly re-examining the past offers clues in how it has gone on so long even though we allegedly had a women's movement. Is it possible that this systemic oppression bears some relationship to why Hillary lost? If we want to say that sexism was part of the reason she lost, shouldn't we take an honest look all facets that have perpetuated systemic sexism in a culture that claims to empower women?

[pnwmom]

20. But what is happening here is that some people are using male misbehavior

as another excuse to attack Hillary -- who took an action that was firm, for the time. Ten years ago most men would have not lost 3 months of pay for this kind of behavior.

[loyalsister]

25. unconditional loyalists see it that way

I would like to see some consistency. If sexism only matters when it hurts gone personally, and they are not willing to draw a line in the sand and have no tolerance when it happens to someone else, it's selling out other women. ESPECIALLY if said person's professional goals might be compromised if they took serious action. I think Madeleine Albright had something to say about that.

[pnwmom]

26. There was consistency. There was a written policy and she followed it. And that policy

was relatively enlightened for the time. For a regular staffer to lose 3 months of pay was a significant punishment.

[former9thward]

2. Well he clearly did not learn his lesson.

So maybe he didn't have much of a problem with doing what he did. The woman in 2008 has not commented about it one way or the other for reasons known to her. What about the woman/women involved in the 2016 incidents? Was she happy with his behavior? What about the years between 2008 and 2016? Does any sane person think he was not doing the same things?

[mcar]

4. So HRC circa 2008 was supposed to, what?

Invent a time machine so she couldngo forward to 2013 to see if the guy didn't learn from the suspension and counseling?

[former9thward]

8. It was a 2016 pro Clinton election group.

Maybe, just maybe, she should not have allowed him to come to her birthday party a few weeks before the 2016 election, and be photographed with her ...

[SunSeeker]

15. How dare she have let campaign workers take pictures with her!!!!1!

Obviously, a politician taking a photo with someone means they agree with everything that person did their entire life!!

[brush]

28. The "blame Hillary for everything" group here on DU of all places, is about as strong as the...

Last edited Sun Jan 28, 2018, 12:45 AM - Edit history (1)

Blame Obama faction on repug sites.

Damn!

Blame those two and you got every problem on the right and left in the country covered.

I for one didn't know #Me_too existed in 2008

Hell, Twitter barely existed.

[pnwmom]

17. Why? Because 8 years earlier there had been a complaint and she had acted on it? n/t

[Hortensis]

23. Actually, they handled it very much as it would be today

in any well run business.

Hillary is a woman, and so were a bunch of her senior people. They had procedures in place, considered all factors, briskly punished Stridor and gave him another chance, and promptly transferred the women to what sounds like a better position away from him, as she wished. And there's certainly no indication that Stridor failed to get the message that that behavior was not allowed in Hillary's outfit.

Many workplaces were and are like that. And many others were and are not.

Trump, of course, insisted that his female employees dress in a style he considered sexually attractive, and no doubt that attitude was reflected in many other unfortunate ways. Sanders was so busy with his economic revolution that he apparently didn't realize an ongong social one needed tending at his headquarters. Both men, of course, grew up in a very different era.

Hillary did also, of course, but she's focused her entire career on women's and children's issues. Of course her operation was advanced.

[pnwmom]

27. +1. n/t

[pnwmom]

6. If you think he was a serial predator, who was he working for during those incidents?

Have you heard that when he was working for Hillary there were any further claims?

If he was working for someone else, how did the other employer respond to misbehavior?

For the single 2008 incident, I think the response by the campaign was appropriate. After that, if he re-offended, and he was still working for Hillary, then he should have been fired. But it is unlikely he was working for her after she lost the primary. So if he re-offended, as you assume he did, then the response would have been up to his next employer.

[former9thward]

9. No I haven't "heard"....

But I didn't "hear" of these scores and scores of claims which happened over many years until it all started coming out like a flood in the last few months. Had YOU heard of those claims before??? So just because we haven't heard of them does not mean nothing happened. And, as we have seen, generally when men do this it is not a one time thing. They do it and do it over and over again until someone stops them.

[pnwmom]

10. But if he wasn't working for Hillary, then she wasn't responsible for anything beyond

how she handled the valid complaint of the single accuser. And her response, docking him three months pay, seems proportionate for what the reports now say he did. Unless you know that he committed other offenses while he worked for Hillary, it doesn't seem fair to blame her for taking actions that followed their written policy and would have been seen as firm action at the time.

[mythology]

19. The problem with just saying it's the next employer's issue

is that the next employer has no way of knowing that the guy has done the same thing at a previous job(s). I don't know what the answer to that is. Because of the risk of being sued a past employer can't say "oh Joe was suspended for sexual misconduct", but the misconduct may not have been technically illegal and so the police can't do anything.

[pnwmom]

21. You know as well as I do that singling Hillary out for criticism based on her response

is unfair, because that man was docked 3 months in pay -- and most men ten years ago, and many till very recently, would have gotten a warning, at most.

[bettyellen]

3. That no one is contrasting this with the standard GOP responses- to lie, pay bribes and find a woman

To blame is very telling. It says it all to me.

[SunSeeker]

13. Yep. nt

[Sam McGee]

14. I must be one sick puppy . . . sick, sick, sick

I'm 73, retired from the Army in 1995, worked in the private sector 1995-2005.

While in the Pentagon, I was chief of offices with military and civilian, men and women. In the private sector I worked alongside women, was bossed by a couple, was boss of several.

NEVER, NEVER, NOT EVER ONE TIME DID I EVEN THINK ABOUT GIVING SOMEONE -- MALE, FEMALE, WHATEVER -- A SHOULDER RUB, FOREHEAD KISS, OR ANY OTHER CONTACT beyond a handshake. When awarding an employee a medal or certificate, I shook hands. Occasionally we posed for photos with arms over each other's shoulders, but that was it.

My emails, memos, and personal conversations were all business with the usual pleasantries about congrats on your kids' achievements, glad to see you back, enjoy your vacation, be safe . .


I must be sick. Or very boring.

[pnwmom]

18. You were a good boss. But I don't know any woman who didn't experience

something like what this woman did (though emails didn't exist in an earlier era). And most offenders didn't experience any more punishment than Clarence Thomas -- even in 2008, getting docked 3 months pay for this behavior was a significant punishment.

[parkerMcDavis]

16. He should of been fired

[Tipperary]

22. I googled him because I was not familiar with him. A real prince.

Apparently, he was once a youth minister. Somehow that did not come as a surprise lol. As far as Hillary is concerned, I think she handled as best she could. Hindsight certainly suggests that it might have been better to have fired him, given his continuing the behavior. I doubt these guys ever learn their lesson.

[ProudLib72]

24. Remind me again

Who was responsible for Larry Nassar? Was it HRC or Obama?

JFC, it does no good to debate the morality of a ten year old decision by someone who did not become president and has no wish to run again. This is just giving substance to a RW talking point.

Sorry pnwmom, I'm not so much upset by your post but by the tendency of some to pick apart the details instead of looking at the big picture.

[delisen]

29. My own experience has been that organizations that do not follow their

written policies on employee conduct are subject to:

1. getting sued by the employee reporting harassment

2. getting sued by the employee reported for harassment

I know of one employee who received a warning or reprimand, did the same thing 2 more times, and got fired. The employer strictly followed the written procedure.

The employee was young, but generally behaved in an immature manner. He was stunned that he was fired.

Everyone who worked with him thought the firing was justified because the policy was clear.


If state law is involved though I imagine it varies.