CCCA Board Member and Speakers Committee Chair, Ray Depa, presented John Winchester with a plaque in appreciation for his lively discussion of changes to sexual harassment laws at the March meeting.


Ben Alexander orchestrated the door prize drawings at the March meeting.

John Winchester III of Robinson and Wood spoke to the March 17, 2005 gathering of the Central Coast Claims Association regarding recent changes to sexual harassment training requirements for companies with 50 or more employees.

He began his talk asking several of the audience members to ogle each other during his presentation. Mark was to ogle Clarette and Ray Depa was asked to ogle a male member of the audience. John then went on to tell a story of a weekend retreat at a posh country club put on by the CEO. As the story went, the Saturday activity was golf, in which both the male and female executives were invited to attend. Despite the invitation to all, only the men attended the golf outing. Following the day on the course, the golfers (all men) were invited back to the CEO's house for drinks and socialization. Mr. Winchester then asked the group if that action would be considered discrimination, since the women executives were not invited back to the CEO's house (since they were not golfing they didn't know about the invitation). A very mixed response is what he got back. Some in attendance felt it was discrimination since the women were not included and had less interactive time with the top executives etc. Some felt the women excluded themselves by not attending golf. In the end there was no right or wrong answer but an alternative was suggested that the CEO could have made the offer to his home to everyone even if they did not attend the golf event.

John then went over different types of sexual harassment and advising that, as of January 1, 2005, California State law requires that companies with 50 or more employees must have interactive training, including active participation for all employees in a supervisory role. This must be completed by January 1, 2006. This training also applies to subcontractors and the training must be 2 hours long so the video of prior training past is no longer acceptable.

John of course recommends that all employees go through the training but at this time only supervisors are required since employees in a supervisory position are strictly liable for sexual harassment and this extends to the company on behalf of the supervisor.

In the end, after the participants in the audience kept ogling each other, John pointed out that non-verbal activities can be construed as sexual harassment as well and that kind of activity is actionable in California only at this time.

CCCA Treasurer, Genavieve Capone, ran the March meeting.


Congrats to Bryan Harrison on winning the 50/50 Raffle drawing.