Supervisor groped female workers, threatened to kill one who reported him, feds say

A supervisor groped female employees and threatened to kill one who reported his sexual harassment — which included demands for sex to stay employed at a shipyard in Mississippi, according to a newly settled federal lawsuit.

“If I lose my job, b----, you gonna lose your life,” the supervisor, employed by U.S. Navy shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Incorporated, called and told the one worker after he learned “she had been talking too much about him,” court documents show.

When this worker reported he forced her to have sex with him, another supervisor, hired by staffing agency NSC Technologies, told her “sometimes you have to do what you have to do to keep your job,” according to a complaint.

Huntington Ingalls and NSC Technologies, which sent the women to work for a cleaning crew at the shipyard in Pascagoula, have agreed to pay $350,000 to at least three victims to settle the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit, a July 18 news release from the agency says.

Additionally, the company must create or revise policies “to prevent and correct sexual harassment,” as well as hold related trainings for workers and managers, according to the release.

McClatchy News contacted NSC Technologies for comment. An attorney for Huntington Ingalls referred a request for comment to the company.

“As soon as the first woman reported the alleged conduct, Ingalls investigated the concerns. Though the allegations of sexual harassment were not substantiated, Ingalls terminated the employee for violating other policies,” Kimberly Aguillard, an Ingalls Shipbuilding spokesperson, told McClatchy News about the supervisor accused of sexual harassment in a statement.

Huntington Ingalls, one of Mississippi’s largest employers, hired the supervisor to work as the ship superintendent on the seventh U.S. Coast Guard National Security Cutter ship while under construction by the company, court documents say.

From September 2017 until May 2018, he is accused of subjecting at least three female employees, who worked as part of the ship’s cleaning crew, to “severe, pervasive, unwanted, humiliating, degrading and offensive sexual conduct,” the complaint states.

One was ultimately fired after she refused to have sex with the supervisor, the release said.

The alleged harassment

The supervisor is accused of telling the female workers “that their jobs were dependent upon them having sex with him or that they could be promoted if they had sex with him,” the complaint states.

Before allegedly threatening to kill the one employee, he told her that the ship they worked on was “his ship and that she needed to ‘get with the program’” before forcing her to have sex with him, according to the lawsuit. He would make multiple, unwelcome sexual comments to this worker daily, prosecutors said.

The supervisor is also accused of exposing himself to female workers and masturbating in front of them, according to the complaint. When he did this to one worker, prosecutors said, he is accused of telling her “I can make you leave your husband.”

The man sought the victims out “when they were working alone or working only with other females whom he had previously harassed so he could touch them or make sexual comments without interference,” prosecutors say.

One woman, who also worked in the cleaning crew, had “an ongoing sexual relationship” with the supervisor, according to the complaint. Others would take on her duties as she had sex with him at work to keep him busy and away from them, according to prosecutors.

In April 2018, after the supervisor fired the female worker who refused to have sex with him, she tried to complain about his alleged conduct to a NSC Technologies recruiter before reporting him to the Huntington Ingalls Hotline, the complaint says.

The recruiter “acknowledged that she knew other female employees had made similar complaints but that there was nothing she could do,” according to prosecutors.

She also “emphasized that (the woman) should not do anything that would cause NSC to lose its contract with Huntington Ingalls,” the lawsuit states.

Days later, another worker called the Huntington Ingalls hotline about the supervisor, and he later called her and threatened to kill her, according to the EEOC.

The agency accused NSC Technologies and Huntington Ingalls of “failing to provide a workplace free from sexual harassment” and violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the complaint says.

Aguillard, the Huntington Ingalls spokesperson, told McClatchy News that the company “found no evidence of many of the specific claims of sexual acts alleged in the EEOC’s complaint, but it nevertheless responded appropriately by stopping any potential unlawful conduct.”

“Ingalls is committed to creating and sustaining a safe workplace for our employees, contractors and visitors and will continue to implement practices and strictly enforce existing policies to eliminate harassment at its facilities.”

The EEOC said it will monitor Huntington Ingalls and NSC Technologies for two and a half years to ensure both companies comply with the lawsuit settlement’s terms, the release said.

Pascagoula is roughly 20 miles east of Biloxi.

Supervisor ordered to stop hiring Black workers at Florida company, lawsuit says

Walmart fired new Florida mom because her needs were ‘problematic,’ lawsuit says

Black Applebee’s cook harassed by Florida coworker wearing Confederate flag hat, feds say

Hotel manager groped housekeepers, Washington suit says. Now hotel owners must pay