Skip to main contentBrenda Gronsdahl doesn't deny that the rock formations in the photos she emailed to co-workers weren't your average wonders of nature. Depending on your perspective, she concedes, they "could look like a penis."
Gronsdahl, a four-year employee with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, hoped to get a few chuckles when she hit the send button on her office computer in October. Instead, she got fired.
Her termination has set off a stir in the state agency's Southwest Portland headquarters, where she worked as a supervisor in computer operations, in part because of the severity of her punishment and in part because Gronsdahl, 39, is openly lesbian.
Gronsdahl says her orientation was never a problem until August, when the department launched an investigation into the petty personal email and Internet use that is as common as Dilbert cartoons among cubicle-dwellers.
Of the four employees targeted initially in the probe, all were women, three were lesbian and two were Latinas, documents show. Besides forwarding the email, Gronsdahl says the department has also accused her of tipping off another employee of the investigation--which she denies.
She points to an agency policy that says incidental use of state email for personal reasons is explicitly OK. But the department is pointing to a new directive--one that Gronsdahl says was issued after she emailed the offending photos--which bans personal emails entirely.
In any case, Gronsdahl argues that other employees caught up in the investigation were only reprimanded or warned, despite dabbling in racier material.
Since October, Gronsdahl and three other Fish and Wildlife employees--all Latinas, including one lesbian--have filed complaints with the Bureau of Labor and Industries, accusing the department of discrimination. One quotes a male supervisor, Brian Alula, as saying, "It is a woman's job to serve the man." Alula declined to comment, and other department officials did not return WW calls at press time.
The complaint comes at an awkward time for the department, which was slammed last month by the state Employment Relations Board, the body responsible for enforcing labor laws at state agencies.
In that case, Allen Van Dyke, an 18-year Native American employee, was fired for telling a co-worker that a citizen was so angry at the department that he might "blow away" some ODFW employees--allegedly an exaggeration.
Another co-worker testified to overhearing one of Van Dyke's supervisors tell another that based on the complaint, "I have a foolproof way to finally get rid of that troublemaking Indian."
The Employment Relations Board gave Van Dyke his job back.
Portland labor lawyer Liz Joffe says public employers generally are held to the standard of progressive discipline, meaning employees are not fired for a first offense--unless the conduct is particularly "heinous."
"I went from being an exemplary employee to dirt," says Gronsdahl. "I didn't deserve to be fired for this."
Gronsdahl's case will be heard by an administrative law judge on Dec. 4.
WWeek 2015