ADVERTISEMENT

No Pentagon Penalty After Defense Worker Claims Hostile Workplace

No Pentagon Penalty After Defense Worker Claims Hostile Workplace

(Bloomberg) -- The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer declined to impose disciplinary action recommended by the inspector general against Leidos Holdings Inc. for allegedly retaliating against a woman who complained of a hostile work environment at a subcontractor.

Ellen Lord, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, “disagreed with the substantiation of the complaint and declined to take further action,” Inspector General Glenn Fine’s office disclosed Tuesday in its latest semiannual report.

Fine found the worker’s complaint valid in a January 2018 report. Fine determined that Leidos dropped the woman from a follow-up contract for the Office of Economic Adjustment “in reprisal” after she complained to the Defense Department and Leidos that a supervisor at the subcontractor she worked for made “inappropriate sexual and racial comments to her.”

“We found that” Leidos “had motive to exclude” her, the inspector general said in the report.

Lieutenant Colonel Mike Andrews, a spokesman for Lord, said in a statement that her decision against taking action “does not mean” she “takes issue with the fundamental factual findings of the IG report, nor does it mean that she condones, in any way whatsoever, the creation of a hostile work environment.”

No Pentagon Penalty After Defense Worker Claims Hostile Workplace

Instead, Lord disagreed that there was a legal basis for the inspector general’s recommendation that she order Leidos, a major Pentagon information technology contractor, to “put the employee in as good a place as she would have been had the non-selection for follow-on work not occurred,” Andrews said.

Fine said in a statement that “we stand by the report’s conclusions, and we believe that the law and the facts fully support the finding of reprisal against Leidos.”

Leidos didn’t respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. In a policy statement on its website, the Reston, Virginia-based company says “we believe diversity and inclusion create cohesive and collaborative teams” and shape “how we recruit talent.” The subcontractor wasn’t identified.

Leidos provides the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security with scientific, engineering, systems integration, cybersecurity and technical services expertise.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Bill Faries at wfaries@bloomberg.net, Larry Liebert

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.