A Needed Reminder in the Mail

Getting along with fellow workers sometimes can be difficult. At the high end, there are clashes of ego and ambition. At the low end, there are quarrels over failures to clean the coffee pot and misusing the computers.

A serious problem in recent years has been sexual harassment. It can cut both ways, but usually it is men subjecting women to verbal abuse or, worse, assaulting them. Sometimes the misbehavior occurs among men and women on equal rungs of the career ladder; sometimes superiors abuse those below them. Whatever the case, harassment is wrong.

Orange County has mailed copies of guidelines on sexual harassment to all 14,000 employees with their paychecks this month. It’s a good move, designed to remind everyone that the regulations exist and need to be heeded.

The mailing comes in the wake of allegations of sexual harassment against several top county staffers, though county officials said the reissuing of the guidelines did not refer specifically to the cases.

In one instance, former county Finance Director Eileen Walsh has filed a civil suit against Health Care Agency Director Tom Uram. Walsh contends that Uram repeatedly made off-color remarks about women and treated female employees unfairly. Uram has denied the charges.

In May, Assistant Sheriff Dennis LaDucer was placed on administrative leave after Sheriff’s Lt. Wendy Costello filed a complaint accusing him of making inappropriate comments and groping her and other female employees. LaDucer has denied the charges.

Costello has also charged that the female employees in the Sheriff’s Department routinely are subjected to sexual harassment and denied promotion, a claim greeted with skepticism by Sheriff Brad Gates.

It is important to note that none of the charges has been proved. But given the frequency of complaints of sexual harassment in private industry and the recent shocking cases of U.S. Army drill instructors convicted of harassing and in some cases raping female recruits, the county needs to take a closer look at practices in its offices.

The county’s guidelines say all employees should refrain from “making unwanted sexual advances” or creating an “intimidating, hostile and offensive” work environment. That should be clear enough for the most obtuse. If there’s any doubt in someone’s mind whether a remark or touch is appropriate, the words should be unspoken, the gesture not made.

Everyone in the workplace deserves to be treated with respect. Men and women have been working side by side for so many decades now that sexual harassment should not be an issue.