Trucking Company Sued for Harassment
9/27/07
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/5169951.html

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I am in Cedar Rapids right now, CRST finally decided to rehire me. The thing is when in orientation, you are asked if you have a preference to what gender trains you. My girlfriend the first time we went out asked for a female trainer, and that is what she got, sounds like a low life trying to make quick money to me.

Not necessarily. Even if she stated NO gender preference for training or team assignments, there would be no real reason for the opposite gendered trainer/so-driver to sexually harass her (or anyone else) I would place MORE blame on the trainer/co-driver and company for allowing this to happen in the first place, than I would label this woman as a "gold-digger".

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Ain't that a sad state of affairs!
No pun intended

I think it's getting pretty bad when male and female Big truck drivers can't share the same space without thinking with their crotches. But the fact remains, it DOES happen.

It also goes the other way, where female trainees think they can buy a free pass by performing certain, ..... shall we say, "favors", for their male trainers.

I've had many female trainees, and never had a complaint. That's because I demanded from the get-go that the relationship be strictly professional, and that's the way it remained.

But females aren't the only ones who file bogus charges.
Minorities do that as well.
I was once declared a racist because I wouldn't pass a minority trainee.
He had a bad attitude and flat couldn't drive a Big truck very well. At all. Period.
And he WOULDN'T listen.
So, I became the bad guy.
But he didn't succeed in convincing anybody.
Luck for me.

But I refused to pass him.
And even trainers of the same race refused to take him as a trainee. They said they "knew the type he was."
NO WAY was I gonna turn him loose for OTHER drivers to contend with. He WAS a crash looking for a place to happen.
One of only two trainees I refused to pass during training.
The other one was during an initial driving test around town.
She hit signs and just said "woops".
I had her pull over immediately.
From there, I drove back.

Sorry.
Another one who wouldn't listen and was in waaayyy above her head.
It ain't easy flunking any trainee.
But it's easier than trying to live with myself if I'd passed them anyway, knowing they have no business driving a Big truck, without more driving training and practice. Maybe not even then.

D I S C L A I M E R ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I DO NOT mean to imply the the female in the above mentioned law suit isn't telling the truth. And I don't know which is worse. A false claim, or a true claim. But I think I'm leanin' more toward true.

Having endured a month of total hell at the hands of 2 of their female trainers (I am female) and the extremely hostile work environment they created and the companies response to my complaints I would totally believe this of CRST. I heard story upon story during my month there of trainer abuses of all kinds and experienced it first hand twice.

I'm surprised that in my relatively short time spent in this industry this is the first time I'm hearing about a lawsuit like this. I'm not saying that this is the first of its kind in trucking history, but just the first I've heard.

I have, however, heard stories of female drivers developing "relationships" with their male trainers.

It'll be interesting to hear of the final decision from the jury on this one.

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Keep that diesel burnin' and those tires turnin', but get there safe to keep on earnin'!!

It's too bad that we all (myself included) can't remember our own short comings at the exact moment a fellow man or woman is having one of their own.

I feel that its automatically the Guy's Fault, just like in the Duke Rape case not a shred of evidence but was still indited by the grand jury, Same with this situation probably, its all going to come down to how many complaints CRST has received in their training department for that individual, but i doubt she took into consideration the "Close Quarters" and Length of time out on the road CRST Mandates 4 weeks out for trainees....

I've heard from other trainers who have either Quit Training or Went back to US Xpress and redid their paperwork and chose the option to Refuse to train Women, and back when i was thinking of becoming a trainer many other trainers had told me to Refuse to train women, other wise there will be problems...

I've heard stories from Male Trainers that say their female students tried to bargen with them by wanting to preform "Sexual Acts" and they refused and the women would turn around and File Sexual harassment charges...

What ever the case may be they should make it law that every company offer drivers the option to refuse to train the opposite sex, i think its the best way to go, it may hurt women in the long run because of fewer women trainers but it will save many career's for male trainers i believe.

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There are Old Truckers and there are Bold Truckers, But there are no Old Bold Truckers.

I believe CRST has such a policy, allowing trainers to chose only male or female trainees. I know my first trainer said she was going to start training only men, and the second told me she was going to start training only women, so they must have had that option. CRST also clearly gives you the option as a woman to chose a female trainer only. They gave me that option, and after the stories I already heard about some of their male trainers, I opted only to go out with female trainers. Turns out I probably would have been better off to put up with some come ons, dirty jokes, or gender put downs from a male trainer than the cattyness, verbal abuse, and backstabbing of the female trainers I had.

I'm not intending to put down women here this is an observation of mine

you know I for the life of me cannot understand why women are almost incapable of working alongside other women... I noticed this when i was working at a Ross Clothing store being the only other Male employee there, i used to take my 15 minute brakes and a couple of the women would be on break at the same time, and they would start up... attacking all the other women that werent on break, but the funny part was it was a different mixture of people i was on break with each time and one woman who sided with another woman about a person they didn't like would be with a different woman and put down the person she just sided with the other day..

Plus the fake friendship
its amazing to me how a group of women can get anything done i remember when my mom used to deliver parts for napa, she Hated every woman she worked with then she moved to work at accounts recivable and it started again different women same reason "Their Trying to Destroy Me" and whats funny is thats the same crap the women i worked with said, and when my wife got a job she said the same thing about women she worked with she got along with a few and the others she said were trying to take her down...

i don't know if its just a few isolated incidents or if this goes on everywhere but it amazes me either way

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There are Old Truckers and there are Bold Truckers, But there are no Old Bold Truckers.

No, these aren't isolated incidents. Women are horrible to each other and very difficult to work with.