Elizabeth Weise

USATODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Almost 250 women and men describe one of the nation's largest jewelry companies, Sterling Jewelers, which operates under the name of Kay Jewelers and Jared the Galleria of Jewelry, as a hotbed of sexual harassment in declarations as part of a long-running arbitration case.

"These documents suggest a culture that allowed and even encouraged sexual discrimination at every level. The circumstances described by current and former employees are terribly demeaning to women, not just because they were mistreated but because they saw their co-workers treated as sexual objects, too,” Joe Sellers , a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Tuesday in a statement to USA TODAY.

Among the declarations, he says, are reports of a rape, male managers cavorting in a swimming pool with topless female employees at a mandatory manager's conference and a witness who tells of a male manager suggesting that a female co-worker swipe a credit card between her breasts.

The declarations, obtained by the Washington Post, depict Sterling Jewelers as fostering a workplace where senior men treated young saleswomen as their private harems, including groping, demeaning and demanding sex in return for better jobs and job security, the Post reported.

The declarations are part of a private class-action arbitration case first filed in 2008. It alleged female employees at the conglomerate were routinely sexually harassed, paid less and passed over for promotion at Sterling, which operates close to 1,500 stores in the United States.

Chief executives of Sterling's parent company Signet Jewelers, including CEO Mark Light, are among those accused of demanding sexual favors, according to documents filed in the case.

The Post has been seeking access to the sworn statements for several years but it wasn't until Sunday night that the more than 1,300 pages of statements were released to the newspaper.

The statements describe top male managers at the company sending "scouting" parties to stores to find female staffers to target for sex.

The managers so frequently demanded sex from female workers in exchange for better positions within the company that there was an internal phrase for it — "going to the big stage," the Post reported.

Some of the allegations were also reported in a 2014 story in the New York Times.

The class-action case includes 69,000 current and former females employees of Sterling. However, David Bouffard, vice president for Signet Corporate Affairs, said in a statement to USA TODAY that "the arbitration matter contains no legal claims of sexual harassment."

Sterling disputed the allegations.

"We have thoroughly investigated the allegations and have concluded they are not substantiated by the facts and certainly do not reflect our culture," said Bouffard.

In the nine years since it was filed, the class-action suit has never included legal claims of sexual harassment or hostile work environment discrimination, he said.

"The only claims certified to proceed on a class-wide basis relate to alleged unintentional gender pay and promotions discrimination. Despite years of litigation, millions of pages of documentation and numerous depositions, claimants’ counsel have chosen not to proceed with sexual harassment claims. These allegations are being publicized by claimants’ counsel to present a distorted, negative image of the company," Bouffard said.

Many of the allegations go back decades and "involve a very small number of individuals in a workforce of more than 84,000 during the class period," he added.

In addition, Sellers said the conduct is “consistent with the evidence in this case that women were systematically paid less than men, even while performing more highly than men, and received fewer promotions that they should have.”