- You're always worrying about your job and not being believed. And I think that's the biggest thing here, is not being believed. 

NARRATOR: Sexual harassment is an ongoing epidemic that occurs in workplaces around the country, in every industry, and at every level. Community Legal Services provides legal help to those experiencing sexual harassment at work. 

- At CLS, I help workers who have claims of wage theft, sexual harassment or discrimination in the workplace, or have perhaps experienced retaliation. I think of harassment as a continuum. So it can start with something innocuous like comments or jokes, and rise to something much more serious, like sexual assault. 

NARRATOR: Sexual harassment can include unwanted conversations about sex, sexual jokes, remarks or gestures, pressuring someone for dates, unwelcome touching or flashing, and sexual assault. In 2020, the Coalition for Restaurant Safety and Health, also known as CRSH, conducted a survey of workers in Philadelphia's hospitality and food service industries. Between June 2019 and March 2020, CRSH surveyed over 100 workers across the city about their experiences of sexual harassment within the past year. 

ANONYMOUS WOMAN 1: I cannot even recount how many times a man has said sexually inappropriate things to me while I was working about what they wanted to do to me sexually, and sometimes forcefully trying to get personal information about me. 

- I did have a very recent experience at a place that I was working in South Philly, where this guy came in. He sat down, and he was very-- he wanted a lot of my attention, which usually trips my wire a little bit. He decides that I needed to give him a ride home at some point, at the end of my shift. 

And he gets really set on this. You're going to give me a ride home. Like, you have to give me a ride home, and you have to see me after work. And so I told the manager. 

I was, like, well, this guy has to leave. We have to get him out of here, because it's, like, I'm starting to be intimidated. He's very big. And he's, just-- yeah. It's, like-- the mood is getting-- we're escalating quickly. Eventually, we had to call the police so that we could leave. 

ANONYMOUS WOMAN 2: Once, there was a coworker who saw me with my hands full in the walk-in refrigerator. He said, I got you now, and then he grabbed me and started kissing on me. I told him that I would scream if he didn't get off of me. He let me go, and I ran away and cried. No witnesses. 

- If you're experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace, there are certain steps that you should take. The first of these is trying to address it directly with the harm-doer. Now, if you don't feel safe doing that, or if the bad behavior continues after you've done this, the next thing you should do is try and report the harassment directly with your employer. 

So you can follow there the employer's policies, if they have those, about reporting sexual harassment. If there's no policy in place, then you can just talk to a trusted manager or supervisor-- someone in a higher position who might be able to address the situation. Now, your employer has a duty, once they receive a complaint, to investigate. 

- So I come into work and nobody says anything. And so when the manager comes in the evening, I say, did you tell the owners, the employers? And she says, yeah. I gave a detailed description. She's got, you know-- I told her about the-- and it's a woman, too. So that's even more disappointing. And you know, she didn't do or say anything. 

NARRATOR: According to CRSH, more than half of surveyed individuals said their employers did nothing to ensure their safety at work after they reported an incident. 

- Now, if your employer doesn't do this, or if they're unable to stop the bad behavior-- meaning it continues after the investigation and some sort of disciplinary action-- you can always escalate your report. And a lot of times, this is where folks come to community legal services for advice. So the next step, then, would be filing a complaint with either a local agency, like the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations, or the Federal government, the Equal Employment Opportunity Center. 

So these agencies-- what they'll do then is go back to the employer to look at whether the employer took the necessary steps in investigating the complaint and addressing the harassment. If the government agency determines that harassment didn't occur or that your employer did take all the necessary steps, that's not necessarily the end of the line. A worker still has the right to take their claim to court. 

And CLS really can advise people along each step in this process. If you're an undocumented worker and you're experiencing harassment in the workplace, you can always reach out to CLS. And we can help assess those risks from an employment standpoint, but also from an immigration standpoint, to help figure out what is the best way to move forward to make sure that you're feeling safe at work. 

NARRATOR: There is power in numbers. Workers have the right to band together to collectively improve their working conditions, like demanding that employers take measures to combat workplace harassment, free from employer retaliation. Workers across Philadelphia are advocating for written policies regarding sexual harassment and mandatory training on how to recognize and respond to unwanted sexual behavior in the workplace. 

- Talk to the manager. Talk to the employer. Try to find some kind of resolution. And if not, Community Law will get involved. 

RHIANNON DICLEMENTE: Every time you speak up and you take action, you're helping the next person, because these people do not-- you are not the only one this person is doing this, too. The more we take those actions and encourage and support other people to take those actions, you know, then we can kind of pave the trail forward for having actual rights and policies so that we don't have to be so scared about it.