City Settles Workfare Harassment Lawsuit
James Barron
May 13, 2006
New York City has settled a lawsuit that the federal government filed in 2001,
accusing the Giuliani administration of failing to safeguard women in workfare
jobs against sexual and racial harassment by supervisors.
Under a consent decree approved yesterday by Judge Richard C. Casey in
Federal District Court in Manhattan, the city promised to send an anti-
discrimination notice to employees at agencies that employ workfare workers.
The consent decree also said that the city had agreed to pay three women a total
of $168,000.
The lawsuit accused the city of subjecting the women, who were in a program
that provides welfare recipients training and jobs, to a hostile work
environment. The lawsuit said that one supervisor had directed one of the
women to pull down her pants in an office in which he had lowered the lights.
Another supervisor, the lawsuit said, told a black workfare participant to
disregard racist caricatures and a noose inside a building she was assigned to
paint.
The Justice Department said when it went to court in 2001 that efforts to
negotiate a settlement had failed.
The Giuliani administration had maintained that welfare recipients in the city's
workfare program were not employees and were not covered by laws prohibiting
sexual discrimination or sexual harassment at work.
Judge Casey dismissed the lawsuit in March 2002, but in February 2004, a
federal appeals court overturned his decision and sent the case back to him
after concluding that the three women were employees and were covered by
federal civil rights laws.
Marilyn Richter, a lawyer for the city, said that after the appeals court ruling, "it
seemed prudent — and in the best interests of all parties — to avoid prolonged
litigation and resolve the lawsuit."
The consent decree noted that the city had denied the workers' allegations and
did not admit wrongdoing. But the city agreed, under the consent decree, to
circulate the notice saying that workfare workers cannot be discriminated
against.
The city also promised to post the same information on a city Web site and in a
city publication describing fair-employment policies.
The largest share of the settlement, $110,000, went to Tammy Auer, who was
assigned to the Sanitation Department on Staten Island. The lawsuit alleged
that on several occasions, she endured improper touching and inappropriate,
suggestive comments by her supervisor.
The lawsuit said that she had complained to the Sanitation Department's
borough commissioner, but that the city took no action. A call to her lawyer,
Timothy J. Casey, was not returned yesterday.
The third worker, Theresa Caldwell-Benjamin, a welfare recipient working for
the Parks Department, will receive $18,000. The lawsuit said she found racist
caricatures and a noose hanging in a window in a building where she was
working as a painter on Staten Island. The lawsuit said that her supervisor's
reaction was that Parks Department employees "didn't mean anything by it."
