Twenty-one Senate Democrats and Senator Bernie Sanders sent a letter to the Department of Labor urging them to collect more comprehensive data about the “prevalence and cost of sexual harassment.” As the letter, which was shared exclusively with Buzzfeed News, points out, the existing statistics are grim: approximately 90% of restaurant workers have been sexually harassed on the job, and anywhere from 25-85% of the female workforce has been harassed by a male colleague. However, these statistics are not complete, and in order for lawmakers to address this issue appropriately, they need to fully understand the problem.
“There has not been an exact accounting of the extent of this discrimination and the magnitude of its economic costs on the labor force,” reads the letter. “We therefore request that your agencies work to collect this data.”
“What is known is that harassment is not confined to one industry or one group,” the letter continues. “It affects minimum-wage fast-food workers, middle-class workers at car manufacturing plants, and white-collar workers in finance and law, among many others. No matter the place or source, harassment has a tangible and negative economic effect on individuals’ lifetime income and retirement, and its pervasiveness damages the economy as a whole.”
The letter also urges the Department of Labor to understand the personal, less obviously economic costs to those who are harassed. “The personal costs of sexual harassment are often invisible,” the letter reads, “yet are no less real, and are often coupled with negative economic consequences. Sexual harassment can have both psychological and physical consequences, including depression, anxiety, muscle aches, headaches, and high blood pressure.”
“In some instances when workplace sexual harassment occurs, employees choose to leave their job, or even their career, rather than continue to experience harassment … Right now, we do not know how many gifted workers and innovators were unable to contribute to our country because they were forced to choose between working in a harassment-free workplace and their career.”
The letter was addressed to the Secretary of Labor, Alexander Acosta, and the Acting Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, William J. Wiatrowski. It was signed by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and cosigned by Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Kamala D. Harris (D-CA), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Ed Markey (D-MA), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jack Reed (D-RI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Tina Smith (D-MN), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
No Republican senator cosigned the letter.
(Via Buzzfeed News; image: GTbov / Shutterstock)
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