Bob CollinsAn employee at the Target store in Fridley is suing the company claiming her promotion was denied after she complained about sexual harassment, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal is reporting.
In her suit, filed last week, Eva Biswas claims that the manager was constantly leering at her and when her promotion was denied, she asked for an explanation, the journal says.
On April 20, Biswas asked the manager for some time to talk about potential managerial training. He obliged and took her back to an office. Once in the office, Biswas noticed a pair of men’s underwear hanging over the back of a chair, according to the lawsuit.
The manager left to get another chair and once he was back, he locked the office door behind him, sat inches away from Biswas and began shaking the underwear in her face — at one point the underwear actually touched her face, the complaint said.
He later put his hands in his pants, touched his genitals and said, “If you want a promotion, you’re going to have to do some hard work for me,” according to the complaint.
Biswas says she complained to other store leaders, and one insisted the manager was only folding clothes.
She is on medical leave now with suicidal thoughts, the paper says.
In a statement, Target said it prohibits harassment in any form and “managers are obligated to report potential misconduct or harassment and we provide our team members with an anonymous hotline for reporting any concerns. We take all allegations of misconduct seriously, investigate them thoroughly, and take disciplinary action with any team members found to have engaged in misconduct.”
