About 250 employees of Sterling Jewelers, which owns Kay, Jared the Galleria of Jewelry, and others, have accused the company’s top managers and leadership of creating a work environment that allowed and encouraged sexual harassment and discrimination against women in the 1990s and 2000s.
Hundreds of documents in the decade-long class action arbitration battle were made public Sunday, and they painted a disturbing tale of unwanted sexual advances and a pattern of unjustly firing anyone who protested the behaviors, The Washington Post reported Monday.
Many of the sworn statements were given years ago, and one woman died in 2014 as the slow-moving proceedings dragged on without much progress, the Post reported.
The statements accused top managers, including some at the headquarters in Ohio, of sending scouting parties to stores so they could find female employees to sleep with and of pressuring saleswomen into sex by refusing to promote or give them raises unless they provided sexual favors, the Post reported.
When women complained, they were often terminated. One woman testified that she was accused of stealing jewelry and fired after she complained about being harassed, the Post reported.
Sterling spokesman David Bouffard told the Post on Monday the allegations have been “thoroughly investigated” and that company officials “have concluded they are not substantiated by the facts and certainly do not reflect our culture.”
Bouffard further said that Sterling “has created strong career opportunities for many thousands of women working at our stores nationwide” and said that there are “multiple processes in place to receive and investigate allegations of misconduct.”
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