Violence In The Hooters Case
A myriad of individuals were potential stakeholders in this case due to the majority of whom contributed to the sexual harassment instances. Firstly, Annette Phillips is a stakeholder due to the fact that she is an employee and the victim of sexual harassment in this case. Also, Bill Hooters happens to be a co-owner of the Hooters franchise who initiated the sexual harassment that occurred in this case, thus making him a stakeholder. Bronwyn, employee and friend of Annette, is a stakeholder too since she too is an employee and was a witness in seeing Annette suffer from sexual harassment. Managers along with other employees were also stakeholders due to their contributions of sexual jokes and innuendo directed towards Annette and other females. Annette’s family holds a place as an important stakeholder since they are essentially the reason why Annette has to resort to working for Hooters. Customers and investors are involved too due to their support of the Hooters franchise through monetary funds without questioning the sexual harassment that occurs.
In this case, many flawed and corrupts ways of thinking and managing have led to many issues regarding Annette’s sexual harassment. Initially, there is a systemic issue at hand due to the fact that the food service industry requires an individual to interact with and be seen by multiple people on a daily basis. In doing so, many customers have felt the need to sexually harass Annette regularly since the Hooters franchise basically supports that form of behavior. This leads to the next issue, a corporate issue: culture. The culture within all Hooters supports objectification of women since they are required to wear revealing and tightly fitted clothing. Even Annette herself had perceived the Hooters culture to endorse the “boys will be boys” way of thinking as an excuse to allow for customers and male employees to validate their sexual harassment. Finally, individual issues deriving from the managers of Hooters have to be noted since a manager told Annette to “let it go” after being touched inappropriately by Bill Hooters. Furthermore, the board or managers designed the sexual harassment procedures to put the company in favor and avoid being sued by the employee. Hooters managers were free to punish arbitrators who ruled against the company and forced employees to sign the arbitration agreement to avoid being sued. Also, managers were the ones who selected the three arbitrators for each sexual harassment claim, thus resulting in a biased decision.
The utilitarianism and rights models play an important role in evaluating the issues at hand regarding this case. To start with, Hooters’ thinking through the utilitarian point of view appears to uphold revenue over the feelings of their workers. Benefits would include things such as revenue, having a theme for Hooters, and male customer attraction. Costs of running Hooters as it is include employees’ rights being violated, employees being humiliated on the job, sexual harassment, and corrupt management who support the sexual tendencies of the job all for the sake of making money in an undignified manner.
Regarding the rights model (Kant), Hooters has engaged in sexual harassment on the basis of human rights. Rights violated include the right to not experience degrading treatment, the right to a fair trial (biased arbitration in this case), the right to work in favorable conditions, and the right to human dignity. The universalizability theory in this situation asks whether a person would recommend that all persons act this way. The answer would be no, because nobody deserves to be constantly sexually harassed at the workplace within a toxic work environment. Reversibility in this situation is regarded as if one would like it if the other party treated that person the same, which has also failed since the owners most likely would not want to be felt up by customers and restaurant management. If Bill Hooters put himself in Annette’s shoes, he would quickly realize why she wishes to file a sexual harassment complaint and he would realize how helpless she must feel.
There are multiple things Hooters can do to prevent situations like this and create a more pleasant work environment for its employees. Firstly, they would need to dispose of the entire arbitration agreement requirement that employees must sign due to how flawed and biased it really is. Also, Hooters should set up security cameras throughout the restaurant to provide sexually harassed employees with proper evidence to support their harassment claims. Hooters can also change their corporate culture towards a more G-rated and well established restaurant that does not revolve around men’s sexual interests. They can achieve such a culture by promoting special policies and establishing a better sexual harassment procedure. Finally, they can have monitors, independent from the organization, come in disguised as a customer in order to evaluate how the workplace is operating in terms of ethics and sexual harassment.
The Hooters case would happen to fall into both areas of sexual harassment, quid pro quo and hostile environment. This definitely falls into quid pro quo due to the fact that Bill Hooters suggested to Annette, “Don’t worry, baby. You keep me happy, and you will become a manager here.” Such an offer can only suggest quid pro quo occurring since he is offering a promotion in return for sexual enjoyment. Furthermore, there is indeed a hostile environment since managers refuse to help her along with “sexual jokes and innuendo around the bar from the owners, fellow employees, and customers, with some frequency.” This implies that it was not a single severe incident, it was indeed on a constant basis. It also agrees with the standard of an average reasonable person since she does not seem to have any form of mental condition. With all of the previously stated, yes, Annette does have a valid claim in the forms of both quid pro quo and a hostile environment.
