Carol Cunningham, right, and other employees of Ford Motor Co.'s Taurus plant in Chicago Heights, Ill., leave a meeting about the automaker's zero-tolerance sexual harrassment policy. Ford has disciplined four managers at the parts-stamping plant who it says took part in parties with prostitutes and exotic dancers. Associated Press
CHICAGO -- Ford Motor Co. disciplined four managers at a suburban parts-stamping plant for
attending off-plant parties over the past decade with prostitutes and exotic dancers.
Ford also announced Thursday that it dismissed four workers at its two Chicago-area plants
for involvement in racial and sexual harassment.
"For those of you who don't know our policy, it is zero tolerance," Robert
Transou, a group vice president of manufacturing, told workers in a series of meetings.
"Simply put, you break the rules, you are out."
He also told workers who listened to his remarks, largely middle-aged men in coveralls,
that he realized most of them weren't involved.
Attorney Keith Hunt, who reached a $1.5 million settlement with Ford recently in a
harassment lawsuit involving Chicago-area employees, said black and Hispanic workers at
the plants have regularly encountered slurs and that women often get unwelcome sexual
advances from supervisors.
He said one woman told him that she had been told she could attend a sex party if she
brought a male stripper with her. She didn't attend.
Ford said the managers were disciplined, even though the parties were off company
property, because they set a bad example.
The company said it was trying to determine whether the parties may have been advertised
in the plant and added that a tape of a 1988 party may have been shown in the plant.
The most recent party was last December.
The company actions followed reports that "Dateline NBC" was preparing to air an
unflattering profile of both the Chicago Heights stamping plant and the Taurus assembly
plant on the city's South Side.
But the company declined to identify the four managers or to say exactly what discipline
had been imposed.
The company did say that the four were low-level managers and that top executives of the
plant had known nothing of the parties.
Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America is facing a major class-action lawsuit filed by
the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging widespread sexual harassment
at its auto-assembly plant in Normal.
The company has hired former Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin to establish a system within
the plant to curb harassment.