Two weeks after Insider.com published my story about sexual assault, drug use and violence at a top insurance agency of Globe Life American Income Division, the story has been cited in multiple court filings in a civil suit. A spokesperson for the Texas Rangers, the Major League Baseball team that plays on Globe Life Field, said the Rangers are “aware” of the allegations against Globe’s Arias Organization. The Feb. 24 story depicted a toxic workplace at Arias Organization, based in Wexford, Pennsylvania. Continue reading
Susan Antilla
Journalist and Author
articles by Susan
Inside the tawdry, drug-fueled world of insurance juggernaut Arias Organization
Women at Arias Organization, a top life insurance agency based in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, say they were fed date rape drugs, compared to dog puke, and forced to watch a boss masturbate. I worked for months on this project for Insider.com, ever-more incredulous as each reporting week went by. I have written about gender discrimination for nearly 30 years. This, by far, is the worst treatment of women in the workplace that I’ve ever seen.
Arias is a star agency under the umbrella of Globe Life Inc., a New York Stock Exchange-traded company that is in the portfolio of Warren Buffett. The agency is known by several names, including Arias Agencies, the Arias Organization and Globe Life American Income Division: Arias Organization. You can read my story here.
Goldman Sachs Kept the Lid On Sensitive Sex Bias Filings For Years. Until Now.
Over 17 long years — starting long before the #MeToo movement galvanized the nation — one of the most powerful banks in the country has been able to keep the lid on many embarrassing details of a high-profile under discrimination case. A day of reckoning could be on the horizon, though, with a recent agreement between Goldman Sachs and a group of women suing the firm in that case to unseal their allegations of harassment and discrimination. I wrote about the case today for Capital & Main.
Forced Arbitration Is Making It Harder for Low-Wage Workers to Seek Justice
More than 60 million U.S. workers have no choice but to use closed-door arbitration — instead of the public courts — if they have a dispute with their employer. I looked into the ways that so-called “forced arbitration” harms low-wage workers who are seeking justice. Here’s my article today in Capital & Main.
To Review Its Mandatory Arbitration Policy, Goldman Sachs Hires Jeffrey Epstein’s Law Firm
Goldman Sachs & Co. is among the 50+ percent of U.S. companies that have forced employees into contracts that require them to use closed-door arbitration — not the public courts — in the event of a dispute. So-called “mandatory arbitration” is one of the greatest scams ever by Corporate America and helps keep racists, sexual harassers and other miscreant bosses out of the headlines and entrenched in their jobs.
So it shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise when, earlier this week, Goldman said it had hired a law firm to review the impact of mandatory arbitration on its employees and that arbitration was working just fine! Which indeed it is, for Goldman. What was a surprise was news that the law firm that did the review was the same one that sexual predatorJeffrey Epstein used. I wrote about it today in The American Prospect.
How Far Can Financial Regulators Go With Their Push for Social and Economic Justice?
Financial regulators are treading into matters related to environment, social and governance, or ESG, at an unprecedented pace. But with conservative opponents pushing back, it isn’t clear how far regulators can go. You can learn more in my article today for Capital & Main.
Ozy’s problems no shocker to employees who blasted the company on Glassdoor
Just days after The New York Times exposed stunning business practices at the online journalism outfit Ozy, the company said Friday it was shutting its doors. That no doubt came as no surprise to some of its employees, who since 2015 have been excoriating the firm on the jobs website Glassdoor, citing its “toxic” culture, “bipolar management style” and conflicts of interest.
For years, I’ve used Glassdoor to get a reading on the culture at companies I’m writing about. Employees submit reviews of their employers anonymously, but when multiple employees write about similar problems, it raises red flags that I follow up on.
I’ve combed through a lot of awful Glassdoor reviews of awful companies. But I’ve rarely seen the level of employee condemnation aimed at Ozy. Continue reading
25 Years After the ‘Boom Boom Room’ Lawsuit, Wall Street Still Has a Long Way to Go
Twenty-five years ago this month, three women at a Long Island branch of financial industry giant Smith Barney filed an explosive class-action sexual harassment lawsuit. Their complaint described a branch office where it was acceptable for men to refer to their female colleagues as “b*tches” and “c*nts”, where the boss bellowed to the troops at an office Christmas party that the branch was “the biggest whorehouse in Garden City” and where male brokers would assemble in a basement party room dubbed “the Boom Boom Room” to drink, party and engage in vulgar talk.
That suit wound up including 22,000 women by the time it settled, and women at other brokerage firms started speaking up, too, adding up to a public relations nightmare for the brokerage industry.
A quarter-century later, there is change, but women are still struggling. I wrote about it in an opinion piece today for CNN. You can read it here.