Taxpayers have paid out nearly $1 million per year in settlements to congressional employees who have been harassed or otherwise treated badly by their political bosses over the past 14 years, according to records from the Office of Compliance.
The payouts stem from hundreds of complaints from employees, some of whom may have been sexually harassed or treated so poorly that third-party mediators were brought in to negotiate cash payoffs to settle the cases.
In fiscal year 2007, for example, the OOC — an agency that administers a confidential dispute resolution system — settled 38 cases, with 25 resulting in monetary awards worth $4 million. In fiscal year 2009 — the most recent year reported by the OOC — the office settled 13 cases for nearly $830,000.
...Congress has exempted itself from having to inform employees about their workplace rights by posting notices in offices — a practice required by law in the public and private sectors. Congress is also not required to keep records that would show a paper trail of lawmakers’ past misbehavior.
“Being a Hill employee is different from other places because the job is about your name. Bringing a claim is like asserting you aren’t loyal enough. Someone who is loyal wouldn’t bring problems like this up,” said Alexis Rickher, an employment discrimination lawyer with Katz, Marshall & Banks who is currently helping represent one of Massa’s accusers. “With the Massa mess, it’s clear that the younger staffers didn’t have a sense of when things cross the line.”
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