Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
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A Salt Lake woman says she was stalked, taunted and called racist names, all at work, by her boss. When she complained about it, she was fired. When she went to the one state agency that was created to protect people like her to get help, what she got were roadblocks.
It took us about an hour to check out Corine Cyphers' story. We called former co-workers and managers who backed up her claim.
But Corine didn't come to us first, she went to the Utah Anti-discrimination and Labor Division. She tells us people at the division sent her away. They just told her she didn't have a claim.
"He called me a (expletive)," Corine told us.
She says the name-calling wasn't the only thing she had to endure from her boss. "He would come over and stand by me and stare. He would come by and stalk me," she said.
Two months after telling the human resources department, Corine was fired. "It's broke me. I've lost everything. I mean, I got evicted. I've had to sell my car. I don't have anything, and this guy's working?" she said.
Clearly frustrated, she paid a visit to the Utah Anti-discrimination and Labor Division, or UALD, to file a complaint. "They said, 'You don't have a leg to stand on. This is a right-to-work state, and there is a right way and a wrong way to call somebody that name,'" Corine said.
Labor and employment attorney Russell Monahan says it's a familiar story. "I've had multiple clients that have gone down there with legitimate complaints only to be turned away," he said.
He says even if a complaint's filed, the case stalls. "Basically, what the Legislature has done has created this administrative process [and] not funded it so that these complaints die on the vine," Monahan said.
They die on the vine because they're dated, some back to 2005.
Heather Morrison, who heads up the UALD, says she can't talk about specific cases but admits her office is overwhelmed. "It's a lot. It's a lot. We're very busy around here," she said.
Here's how busy: With just two in-take officers, the UALD has fielded just under 4,000 complaints, and that's just in last five months. Of those calls, only a few hundred are taken on as cases. Of those cases, there are only six investigators, each handling roughly 75 cases.
"I would agree we could use more help," Morrison said.
Monahan says that help should include more training that is backed by the Legislature. "They made sure that they don't fund it enough so that they can do their jobs competently," he said.
Competently, so that claims like Corine's get through and get investigated in time. "Ultimately, it's a political question: Do we want to have an effective agency to fight discrimination?" Monahan said.
For people like Corine, that answer would be yes. "It's not right. You don't call people names like that and get away with it. Not in the workplace," she said.
Corine's case is just one example of an agency that is backlogged and understaffed. The Labor Commission's Wage Claim Unit gets 40,000 calls a year with only six people fielding complaints.
For more information on workplace discrimination and how you can get help, click the related links to the right of this story.
E-mail: lprichard@ksl.com
