The U.S. Department of Labor announced recently that its Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs had entered into a conciliation agreement with a Minnesota-based company to resolve allegations that its employees faced sexual harassment, a hostile work environment, and/or retaliatory actions.
Ryan Companies US, founded in 1938, is a national builder, developer, designer, and real estate manager headquartered in Minneapolis and operates offices throughout the United States. Since 2015, the company has held more than $900 million in federal contracts and currently has contracts with the U.S. General Services Administration.
The federal contractor's employees had complained about harassment, which led federal investigators to work with them to look into the allegations.
According to its report, after receiving complaints the Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) conducted a routine compliance evaluation and discovered worker harassment based on sex that included physical, verbal, and visual harassment.
The incidents occurred while being employed by the Minnesota-based construction services provider to work on federally funded projects, including the construction of a U.S. federal courthouse in Des Moines, Iowa.
The OFCCP determined the harassment was severe and pervasive, and officials with Ryan Companies knew of and, in some instances, participated in the harassment.
The alleged incidents occurred between March 2021 and February 2024 in the Des Moines metropolitan area and federal investigators learned employees had been complaining for several years about these illegal behaviors.
To resolve the allegations, Ryan Companies has agreed to pay $350,000 in monetary relief and comply with injunctive relief and routine monitoring.
The Office of the Federal Contract Compliance Programs has launched a Class Member Locator to identify applicants or workers who may be entitled to monetary relief and/or consideration for job placement as a result of the compliance evaluations and complaint investigations.
You can click the button above if you think you may be a member who was subjected to sexual harassment, hostile work environment, or retaliation by Ryan Companies at its worksites in the Des Moines, Iowa area during the investigative period.
Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Regional Director Carmen Navarro stresses that "People should be able to go to work every day and be treated with dignity and respect, not degradation and abuse. The harassment and hostile work environment that these employees faced is appalling and might have continued if OFCCP had not intervened."
Navarro added that federal contractors must always provide a workplace where harassment and retaliation are unacceptable and nothing less will not be tolerated.