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Sexual Harassment Legal Problem That Research Proposal

A short list of inappropriate places would include the buttocks, the legs, or the chest, but could be expanded to include anywhere other than the arm or the shoulder. A second offense, or any harassing of the waitress or manager because of the warning, would eject in the patron being ejected from the cocktail lounge. In the case of a lounge patron who was also a hotel guest, the guest would be barred from re-entering the lounge during his or her stay. Furthermore, while it would be impossible for a hospitality manager to try to prevent flirting by the customers, the fact is that some behavior is obviously inappropriate. Workers in any other industry would not be expected to put up with over sexual offers or demands, and cocktail waitresses should not be faced with that type of behavior, either. In fact, to permit patrons to treat waitresses in that manner would contribute to a hostile work environment on the basis of sex, and would clearly violate those waitresses' rights to be free from sexual harassment. Therefore, the manager would need to immediately step in and inform a patron that his behavior was unacceptable, if a waitress reported that a patron's advances were making her feel uncomfortable in any way. A second offense would result in the patron's ejection from the lounge. However, the hospitality manager also has to be certain that no group of people is being discriminated against; it would be untenable for a waitress to accept advances from one patron and reject them from another patron on the basis of a protected characteristic, like race or national origin.

In fact, because of the atmosphere created in a cocktail lounge, which suggests a certain availability of its waitresses to the patrons, a hospitality manager might find that it is wise to institute a no-romance policy in the workplace. These policies, sometimes referred to as love contracts, can be difficult, if not impossible to enforce. However, they do provide some protection for management in the event that a romantic relationship...

For example, if a waitress begins seeking a customer and he comes to the lounge every night when she is working, that behavior would seem acceptable. However, if that couple broke up and the patron continued to come to the lounge and seek out her service, that could clearly constitute the basis for a sexual harassment claim. However, management would have a difficult time making a legitimate request that the patron not come back to the establishment, as long as the patron was not engaging in sexually inappropriate behavior. Therefore, if management instituted a policy that its waitresses were not permitted to begin dating someone that they met at the lounge, nor were they permitted to have husbands or boyfriends at the lounge with them during working hours, it might be able to protect itself from some potential sexual harassment claims.
Finally, one of the huge sexual-harassment related issues that a hospitality manager faces in a hotel-operated upscale lounge is prostitution.

A hospitality manager would have a difficult time defending a waitress who received a $500 tip and then had sex with that patron that night. Moreover, a waitress might find it very difficult to report a patron who was pressuring her to have sex with him, if she had received a substantial tip from him that evening. Therefore, the hospitality manager would need to issue an absolute prohibition on its waitresses going anywhere in the hotel besides the lounge area while on duty or within 24 hours of last being on duty. Waitresses could cite this policy to patrons who believed that they were entitled to sexual favors in exchange for high tips or pricy orders. More importantly, hospitality managers could cite this policy to waitresses who actually wanted to have sex with a patron that night, thereby protecting themselves from the possibility of being investigated as a bordello, and from any nasty sexual harassment allegations that could arise from the events that unfolded in an unsupervised hotel room.

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