I've mentioned this before, but seems appropriate to bring up again.
When I was a programmer at Salomon Brothers in the mid-1970s, I was
assigned to work under Michael Bloomberg to automate Salomon Brothers'
branch office in London. When a programmer on my team, an
African-American woman named Barrie, learned that I would be working for
him, she made a sour face. When I asked her what's wrong with him, she
said that he was a total sexist pig. At the time, he was on the trading
floor at Salomon Brothers when the "big swinging dick" culture was at
its height. She said that when a Puerto Rican secretary would walk
across the floor bringing coffee to a broker, he would yell out, "Look
at the tits on her." Apparently, he never stopped being a pig.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070729/bloomberg-sexual-harassment/
Sex Suit Could Be Problem for Bloomberg
SARA KUGLER | July 29, 2007 12:41 PM EST | AP
NEW YORK — Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks his mind and that is a big
part of his cachet in anything-goes New York.
But new details from a sexual harassment lawsuit he settled in 2000 and
other racy comments over the years show how his blunt style could prove
a liability if he runs for president as an independent.
Before his election as mayor in 2001, Bloomberg was the target of a
sexual harassment suit by a female executive who accused him of making
repeated raunchy sexual comments while he was chief executive of his
financial company, Bloomberg LP.
Among the allegations in the complaint:
Bloomberg asked the woman who sued if she was giving her boyfriend
"good" oral sex.
_He said "I'd like to do that" and "That's a great piece of a--" to
describe women in the office.
_When he found out the woman was pregnant, he told her "Kill it!" and
said "Great! Number 16!" _ an apparent reference to the number of women
in the company who were pregnant or had maternity-related status.
Bloomberg denied the accusations. Both sides were barred from commenting
because of confidentiality agreements. Stu Loeser, the mayor's
spokesman, said Friday he had no comment for this story.
The suit was a minor annoyance for Bloomberg during the mayoral race in
2001; opponents in that first race tried, with little success, to draw
attention to the allegations. It was not an issue in his 2005
re-election campaign.
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