Press Release

MOVIE GALLERY EMPLOYEES ENDURE SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN WORKPLACE

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Contact: Randy Sharp, ext. 240
AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION
P. O. Drawer 2440
Tupelo, MS 38803
Ph. (662) 844-5036
www.afa.net

For immediate release: October 1, 2001

Female employee: “He solicited me just like I was a prostitute.”

TUPELO, MS - Movie Gallery, America’s largest hard-core sex video rental chain, says it “is always looking for dedicated, enthusiastic, movie ‘buffs’ that are committed to teamwork and providing excellent customer service.” But unsuspecting Movie Gallery employees are routinely confronted with sexual harassment and solicitations for sex, raising legal concerns.

One Movie Gallery store manager said a particular customer literally “sought her out” every Saturday night without fail. Randy Sharp, director of special projects for American Family Association (AFA), said the manager wrote to him, “I have often wondered why upper management can’t see that they are reducing their employees to mere peddlers of instant embarrassment, to recipients of ugly, unsolicited sexual come-ons.”

Sharp said an alliance of pro-family groups in 11 states are campaigning Movie Gallery to get out of the hard-core porn business. He says the company may be found liable in sexual harassment lawsuits because it fails to protect employees, especially women, from a hostile work environment. “Movie Gallery employees are regularly and repeatedly confronted with lewd and suggestive comments from sex video-renting customers and are required to monitor ‘back rooms’ with hundreds of hard-core sex videos.”

“Yet the company has shown no initiative in protecting their employees, and in essence, allows it to continue,” said Sharp. According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a company may be responsible for customer harassment of its employees if it fails to take corrective action within its control once it knows or has reason to know of the customer's conduct.

Ellen Bravo, a spokesperson for 9to5, an advocacy organization of working women, suggested that Movie Gallery post signs prohibiting customers from sexually harassing employees. Bravo said that requiring employees to watch closed-circuit cameras which monitor embarrassing customer activities in a “back room” of porn videos creates a “whole different level” of sexual harassment concerns.

Movie Gallery rents and sells hard-core sex videos in nearly 300 stores nationwide.

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