ABM Industries, a maintenance contracting company, will pay a $5.8 million settlement to the 21 California Latina janitorial staff who filed a class action sexual harassment lawsuit against the company. The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) lawsuit was filed on the women’s behalf in 2007, according to the Associated Press. The suit alleged that the women were harassed by at least 14 of their male co-workers, one of whom is a registered sex offender, between 2001 and 2009. “Some were groped in and around their vaginal area. Some women were forced to touch erect penises of their co-workers and supervisors,” EEOC Attorney Anna Park told Southern California Public Radio. “One woman was cleaning a bathroom when a supervisor attempted to assault her by closing the door in the bathroom while she was cleaning it, turned off the lights and tried to grab her legs and buttocks.” According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the settlement is among the largest the EEOC has reached in a civil rights lawsuit. ABM is based in New York and employs more than 90,000 people across the US in security, janitorial, and maintenance jobs.
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