If any of you have seen the news about nation wide vintage shop, Buffalo Exchange. The Denver shop is now closed and under investigation because the Denver owner allegedly sexually abused his young females staff for many years and the survivors are now coming forward with their stories.
Check out buffalo.in.the.room instagram page to see these horrific stories.
Why is this still happening in the work place? and how did they get away with this for so many years? Did these women go to their Human Resources department? Were these women aware of their HR department?
Should HR departments be more open to their employees about discussions like this?
I saw this as well, and it’s so upsetting. Just as a white person cannot tell BIPOC what is racist, males cannot tell females what is sexist. What often repeats in the stories shared on buffalo.in.the.room is men telling women “oh that’s Todd being Todd.” How can we dismiss blatant sexism, assault, and incredible abuse of power as a personality trait? How are we still unable to trust women who say “this is abuse, this is sexist” and brush it off as an overreaction?
In one specific story on the Instagram page, a women details how upon being hired, her female manager said that if Todd overstepped in any way to be open, and that she would put him in his place. So many people, both males and females knew what was happening for years. Unfortunately, there is no safe space for women to come out openly and honestly about assault they have experienced and that’s where we as a society need to step up. Nobody should fear for their job, their livelihood, and be afraid that the world/their friends/their managers and coworkers won’t believe their assault accounts.
In terms of your HR questions - It sounds like in this situation management knew from at least a couple of the women. To reference another story from the Instagram (I read most of the 100+ on there), one female details calling corporate numerous times. It should take ONE call from ONE person for action. Not more than one, and in this case not a very public Instagram account. I think it’s important that HR departments or even management teams create an open and safe space for unhealthy workplace treatment to be reported. I also think it’s a good idea that a clear path for what a report will look like so the women know that no matter what this will be directly addressed - i.e. a person reports unfair treatment/assault/racist/sexism, this is then escalated to higher levels of leadership as appropriate (is it the CEO? you go to corporate or the HR team. Is it your manager? Is it a coworker? You go to the CEO/HR department), from there what do the repercussions look like? Are there meetings? Is there legal action? And so on.