Male Employees, Particularly Black Men, Were Consistently Abused and Degraded by Owners of Fish Market, Federal Agency Charges NEW YORK – M. Slavin & Sons, a retail and wholesale fish market, violated federal law by creating a hostile work environment for male employees, including physical and verbal sexual harassment and offensive and degrading comments based on race and national origin, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit it filed on 12/07/2009. According to the EEOC’s suit, some of the owners and managers of M. Slavin & Sons subjected male employees, particularly black employees, including both black Americans and at least one immigrant from Africa, to ongoing harassment. The misconduct included groping their buttocks, putting fish hooks into their buttocks and unnecessarily rubbing their bodies into the employees when passing them by. The owners and managers also made numerous crude, obscene sexual and/or racist comments. One owner u...