Balfour Beatty Infrastructure will pay $80,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit against it, involving a truck driver who claimed she was subjected to lewd comments and acts while working for the company and said that when she complained to a supervisor, the contractor responded by transferring her to an unwanted job.
The allegations involved crude and intentional comments and actions, such as a co-worker asking the victim to “talk dirty” and asking her to send him pictures of her breasts. The co-worker also sent her sexually explicit texts. After his complaint, the driver’s co-workers hit back with blasphemous allegations, including a statement that construction is “a man’s world.”
Balfour Beatty’s settlement with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was the third by a construction employer in September. Previous settlements involved contractors JA Croson and Asphalt Paving Systems.
In a statement to McClatchy News on Sept. 9, Mark Konchar, president of Balfour Beatty’s U.S. Civils and Rail division, said, “We are committed to providing a workplace where everyone feels respected and valued,” and “we expect all our people to be respectful and inclusive and to hold each other accountable.”
In addition to the $80,000 in damages owed to the affected employee, Balfour Beatty Infrastructure must review its anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policy, train all staff employees on sexual harassment and retaliation issues and “refrain – to discriminate against employees because of their sex”.
In 2018, ENR published a survey it conducted, which found that two out of three industry respondents reported an incident of gender bias or sexual harassment.
