I am the only in Hispanic female in my dept, and one of two Hispanic women out of the organization that includes 100's of men - I work for a very well known company for over 7 years. For the past 3 years I have dealt with nothing but discrimination (so has the other women), harassment, and last year sexual harassment which happened only one time. I reported my incidents to HR several times - they did nothing. I have also reported this to Ethics - they made a couple of phone calls, interviewing some of the guys regarding me being discriminated - they said they didn't think I was being singled out. As far as the sexual harassment was concerned, well my upper mgmt was tipped off and they got rid of the guy (mgr) who sexually harassed me Before Ethics got to them - that was the end of that. NOW, my new mgr is starting to discriminate against me. I have now hired a women to write a report about all my incidents (I have proof) and will start seeing a social worker/clinician because it has truly effected my mental state. My question is can the company in some sneaky way, get rid of me if I go on disability? If they do, and I hire an attorney, will the attorney say "your harassment/discrimination/sexual harassment is too old of issues to sue

Back up a minute. What behavior are your claiming is SH or based on your ethnicity? Not everything that happens or that employees frequently think is illegal truly is.

Assuming it is, there are statutes of limitations on filing claims, os if these are things that happened a year ago, your time limit has expired. It sounds like your company is taking your complaints seriously if they terminated the guy who harassed you a year ago. They are obligated under the law to ensure that it stops, and by terminating him, they did just that. It didn't have ot go to the Ethics committee first or anything of the sort. If the behavior was unacceptable, then acting once they were aware of it was the proper thing to do.

I'm not sure why you are hiring someone else to document your accusations. Why aren't you just keeping track of them on your own and reporting them? Prooving them isn't the issue. Keeping a list somewhere that the powers that be don't see until it is too late isn't going to help you in any sense.

Why do you think they would retaliate if you do go on disability? I think you are jumping the gun based on what you have shared. There is nothing you have written that would even hint that this would be the case. Even if you did have reason to believe this, no one here can guess what your employer might do or not do. As most employers are ethical and would not retaliate against someone for taking disability, I would say the odds are against it. Doubly so as retaliation as they did terminate the one person you accused of SH and not you.

Ellen,

In answer to your question "What behavior are your claiming is SH or based on your ethnicity?" My manager physically touched me and was fired. In answer to your next question about "It sounds like your company is taking your complaints seriously if they terminated the guy who harassed you a year ago." The company is Not taking my complaints serious because as usual all my complaints go as far as my Sr Mgr's Level and that's it. The ONLY reason my sr mgr got rid of this mgr was because we were days before merging with another huge company and he couldn't afford a scandal in his department so he pressured the mgr into leaving.

For the past 3 years I have made many complaints about my on-going discrimination/harassement to HR and Ethics and to this day it only reaches my sr mgr. Why? Because my sr mgr somehow always manages to make sure it doesnt reach higher then his level. That shouldn't be

The reason why I have hired this women in helping me write a report of all these years is because for one, it's a lot of paperwork (print outs, emails, etc) dating back three years ago and it's too overwhelming for me to do myself. 2nd I need to now since the garbage still continues, I want to present it to the highest level person in the new company which supposedly has zero tolerance for this. If they fire me, so be it - at least I gave it my 100%. No one should have to continue to tolerate this behavior and no I will not leave the company.

It doesn't matter whether they fired him because of the merger or because of the SH; the bottom line is, they fired him.

Nor does anything in the law say that complaints have to go to the highest level.

The company's ONLY legal obligation is to make the harassing behavior stop. Since they have fired the guy, for whatever reason, they have fulfilled their obligation.

I'm curious why you haven't reported the behavior to a level higer than your senior manager if that is what you feel would take care of the problem? Why wait until you have years worth of documentation, much of which would be far too late to act upon? Report the most recent instance to the appropriate person at the new company and go from there. Or even just take it to the Director of HR or your senior Manager's supervisor.

I'm also curious about this person you have hired. Are you paying this person out of your own money? I can't imagine the company approved you hiring someone to track this sort of thing and it is questionable ethically to make a direct report essentially ferret out a case against the company that employs them. It just puts that person in a bad spot and it really isn't necessary in order for you to make a complaint.

It still isn't completely clear what behavior you alledge is discriminatory. You don't have to post the details here but it does raise red flags that multiple people and an ethics committee found the acts to not be discriminatory.