Deadline: A second woman has come forward with allegations that Jon Hendry, the boss of IATSE Local 480 in Santa Fe, NM, sexually harassed her. Hendry, who until recently was one of the most powerful labor leaders in the state, was ousted as president of the New Mexico Federation of Labor AFL-CIO on Monday after Christa Valdez, the local’s former outside public relations rep, sued him last week for sexual harassment.
2 comments:
I am no longer surprised by the number of allegations that keep coming out against various leaders in this industry anymore. Being here at USITT at the time I'm writing this there is a very uneasy sense of unease on the issue in the industry. Some people are merely going about the day as though nothing is happening and others have become hipper sensitive to the problem. I have even seen the behavior and heard comments by people that would fall into creating similar lawsuits in the past few days. One session I went to about creating a safe and inclusive shop talked heavily about finding people that are "weed pullers" and that we need to confront and stop these issues as soon as they happen. This is a simple fix that is hard to implement, you need everyone to try and fight it on all fronts. It can be difficult in many situations but is something that we all need to be teaching.
It is so disheartening to see how widespread and pervasive this sort of behavior has been in this industry. What is even more disturbing is the degree to which it seems that people conspired to cover this sort of behavior up. Not only was the sexual harassment criminal, but it seems the cover-up was just as bad. Additionally the fact that he was seen as a labor leader in New Mexico begs the question as to why he was the one representing workers. It is scary to consider how many workers may have been relying on him to stand up for them if they brought forward cases of sexual harassment in the workplace. He certainly seems like one of the worst possible people to be in that position. Ultimately our industry needs to work together to foster a workplace environment where employees feel comfortable levying complaints against higher ups that might be sexually harassing them. This is not a perfect solution, but a solution is certainly needed, because this sort of behavior has gone on long enough.
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