Legal Question in Employment Law in Michigan

Hostile environment

A VP, who has no formal authority, has recently begun ''harrassing'' several employees. Threatening their jobs, constant berating & critisim in front of other employees & clients, and generally causing great emotional distress & making them frightened for their jobs. This behavior has been reported to the President many times, his reaction is to again humiliate the complaining employee and not address the situation. Due to the current economic climate these employees are not in a position to leave & this is well known. The harrassment has not been sexual and although all the harrassed are women it doesn't appear to be the reason they are targeted (ie comments are generally performance related, not racial, gender, age, etc based). Do these employees have any legal recourse?


Asked on 12/23/07, 4:47 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Rebekah Tiefenbach Rebekah L. Tiefenbach Esq.

Re: Hostile environment

Berating employees is not against the law, nor is being a horrible, jerky boss. Anyone who has the capital can start a business; there is no prerequisite for HR skills training. Only harrassment that is sexual in nature or motivated by the employee's status in a protected class is illegal.

If the workplace is unionized, the employees can file grievances. If there are wage and labor laws or administrative regulations being violated, then there is recourse for those as well.

But, my question is, if the VP has no real authority, what does it matter if he is threatening jobs?

Sounds to me like VP & Pres are trying to get people to quit to cut workforce without having to deal with layoffs/firings and paying unemployment.

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Answered on 12/24/07, 10:42 am


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