Using a throwaway so I am not identified.
I never thought I would experience a story like this in real life. I am a male team leader, and a few years older than the team members at my job. Many of the female team members have confided in me that they have been repeatedly sexually harassed and inappropriately touched by my boss, the manager. For example he will walk too close behind them and “accidentally” touch their butt, or be too handsy when “guiding them through a task” during training, give hugs without warning (e.g. from behind or from the side), as well as verbal comments such as calling them beautiful etc.
I have been told matching stories by at least 5 of the girls, and I have heard secondhand that the others have all experienced this too. Many of them quit because of this. I reported all these allegations to the owner.
Now, personally I was always under the impression that sexual harassment is a pretty serious misconduct and should warrant immediate disciplinary action at the very least. Right? Right? Wrong.
I was pretty shocked when the owner's response was basically that we can't jump to conclusions because it would be hard to find another manager and we need to see hard evidence first. If people are repeatedly reporting the same misconduct is that not enough to take action? Anyway, I was not satisfied with the owner's response so I asked a few of the girls if they would be comfortable to talk to the owner themselves, to share their story firsthand. They did. I was then even more appalled to hear that the owner's response was “Wait til it happens again, then note the time and we will check it on the security camera”. Wait til it happens again?? Isn't experiencing it once more than anyone should ever have to?
Regardless, the owner did agree to have a talk with the manager about the situation (not sure what the outcome of that was).
About a week later, the behaviour had largely stopped (apart from a few questionable verbal comments here and there). But then I saw the manager hugging one of the new girls (it was basically a forced hug where he pulled her into him it was pretty gross) so I messaged the owner immediately telling him the exact time and the exact camera to check. No reply.
This was the last straw for me so I went to my country's equivalent of OSHA (not going to say what country I'm in but its not USA). It basically said the only option is to start a legal process but of course this is expensive and emotionally taxing. I told a few of the girls that this is an option and they said no it's not worth it.
Anyway that's my story. I'm this close to just going to the cops because working in this environment is causing me an enormous emotional toll. I care a lot about the people I work with and I stand up for them probably more than is strictly necessary in my position as team leader. Because it hurts me to know that they feel uncomfortable at work. The only thing stopping me from going to the cops is I don't want to cause a massive scene and I don't want my manager to find out it was me that called the cops on him. I'm also thinking about quitting, but I can't just quit straight away without lining something else up first. And also part of me doesn't want to quit because I shouldn't have to leave my job because of someone else's misconduct.
But to be honest I never thought I would see a real life example where money caused people to turn a blind eye to sexual abuse. It's definitely made me see the world differently.
Any helpful advice is much appreciated particularly if it pertains to workplace laws or rules etc thankyou