The Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs has released A Guide to Combatting Harassment in the Construction Industry, which aims to help federal contractors understand the agency’s jurisdiction by clarifying what constitutes harassment and providing information to workers who may experience harassment, according to Construction Dive.
DOL’s guide lists various actions that are examples of harassment, including:
- Making unwelcome remarks related to a protected characteristic and guising them as a joke
- Displaying, in writing, derogatory remarks related to a protected characteristic at a job site
- Failure to maintain women’s restrooms to the same standards as men’s restrooms as a part of creating a hostile or abusive work environment for women on the job site
- Criticizing someone’s participation in a job or industry because they are deemed to not belong because of their sex
- Using racial slurs and nicknames
The guide also highlights best practices and the negative effects harassment has on job-site safety.
In June, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued its own guide of best practices for preventing harassment in construction after conducting a yearlong investigation that concluded construction stands out as an industry with “egregious incidents of harassment.”
