The Fairbanks Ranch Country Club, located in Rancho Santa Fe, California previously member-owned, is now owned by the Bay Club Company of San Francisco. The private club features an 18-hole golf course and all of the amenities that go with a Southern California country club, including a restaurant.
Little Secret
However, the club had a little secret that came to light after the EEOC was finally called in to handle a Sexual Harassment Lawsuit (the italics are mine):
“The restaurant manager at the Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., country club sexually harassed a class of young female servers almost daily. The EEOC’s lawsuit alleges that the manager routinely abused his position by requiring female servers to acquiesce in his sexual advances for job benefits. Additionally, the agency charged that the behavior was so prevalent that other male employees felt free to engage in sexual harassment as well.”
Prior to the filing of the lawsuit, and due to the hostile actions of the male employees, female servers resigned rather than put up with the daily sexual harassment.
The women who filed the complaint were awarded $125,000 in damages. Fairbanks Ranch Country Club, has “agreed to retain an EEO monitor, review and revise its policies and procedures regarding discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, and create a reporting structure for employees to report discrimination and harassment, which will include establishing a complaint hotline number.”
In addition, the country club has agreed to provide training to employees for at least the next three years. The lawsuit does not acknowledge if the manager or any of the other harassing employees lost their jobs over this, but it did acknowledge the cooperation of one executive who is committed to a safe, hostile-free environment. The little secret of the sexual harassment at the country club managed to make headlines.
Not the Greatest Job
Most anyone who has had to wait tables for a living would agree it’s a tough way to make a living. From the country clubs and five-star restaurants to fast-food chains, most of the waitstaff workers are often doing the job because they either have no choice, or are on their way to something else. More often than might be realized, the waitstaff is harassed by patrons. I would imagine The Fairbanks Ranch Country Club is no exception to that occurrence. It is stupid, immature and sexist behavior – and least.
However, when the waitstaff is sexually harassed by management and co-workers, it signals a breakdown in training and supervision. In this case, the manager and other restaurant employees undoubtedly (or should have) had supervision. Apparently, no supervision was in place to ensure the work environment was safe and free of harassment. Apparently (and even more important) there was no mechanism by which harassed employees could bypass the immediate supervisor and harassing co-workers and report the behavior.
As mentioned earlier, for many employees who take server positions, there “is no choice.” It may be a last resort type of job. They are often afraid to report harassment for that reason. Unethical managers know that; they are emboldened and empowered.
The question I often pose in matters of sexual harassment training is if the cost of training is just a fraction of potential lawsuits, why not do it as a matter of corporate policy? So far, the sexual harassment at The Fairbanks Ranch Country Club, when you figure the three-year monitoring and reporting in addition to the cost of the lawsuit and the negative publicity is going to run well in-excess, multiple times in excess, to what basic sexual harassment training would have cost.
The Fairbanks Ranch Country Club’s little secret is no longer a secret and my guess is that the problems in the restaurant is only a small reflection of problems throughout the organization.
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Unfortunately, this country club is not the only one with major issues. Most of the time employees are forced to sign NDA and the perps get to keep their jobs.