I work as a dogwalker. We are considered “independent contractors”, there is no actual office and all our correspondence is handled through email. We don't have direct deposit and we get checks in the mail as payment. I don't really a whole lot about the company or my coworkers, since I don't meet them often.
I have met one of my coworkers and we decided to keep in touch. Today I reached out to her and she told me she was sexually harassed by a client during one of her shifts on Wednesday. She immediately emailed the office and informed what happened, and requested that no other sitters be given that shifts since majority of petsitters are female. The company reassured her and took her off the shift.
However, the next day, I went to the shift since it was on my schedule and had no idea that I was going into a molestor's house. The company didn't inform us about the incident or drop them as clients. I had them on my schedule till this morning when I reached out to her and she told me what happened.
As a rape survivor, I absolutely went ballistic. I took screenshots of my shifts and my coworker has screenshots of her correspondence. I sent them an email saying I can't work for a company who handles sexual harrasment like this. Now the company is saying that my coworker shouldn't have reached out to other sitters and that “they were handling it”. The assault happened on Wednesday. They didn't pause our shifts with the clients.
What can we do here? Any advice would be appreciated.