The Union Factor in the DSK Case

Posted on May 24, 2011

AP

A collection of French newspapers from May 16 display headlines referring to the former head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

Would Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s alleged victim have been as quick to tell authorities her story if she hadn’t been a union member? Maybe not, The Guardian’s Dean Baker points out.  —KA

“Comment is free America” in The Guardian:

This matters because under the law in the United States, an employer can fire a worker at any time for almost any reason. It is illegal for an employer to fire a worker for reporting a sexual assault. If any worker can prove that this is the reason they were fired, they would get their job back and probably back pay. (The penalties tend to be trivial, so the back pay is, unfortunately, not a joke.)

However, it is completely legal for an employer to fire a worker who reports a sexual assault for having been late to work last Tuesday or any other transgression. Since employers know the law, they don’t ever say that they are firing a worker for reporting a sexual assault. They might fire workers who report sexual assaults for other on-the-job failings, real or invented.

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