Wife Reported Sexual Harassment At Work. Company Brought The Guy Back, Didn't Move Him Off Her Crew, And Now She's The One Who Is Transferred To Another Crew And Essentially Taking A Demotion.

My wife (30F) and I (31M) live in Oregon. She works at a distribution center. This is a large company with thousands of employees across hundreds of locations but this is their only distribution center, roughly 500 people probably total work there. It's obvi male-dominated. she's one of a only a few women that work in the entire warehouse. She's worked there for over 3 years total. She was there for a while before, left for another company, and came back over a year ago. The male coworker (mid-40s) started around the time she left and has been there since. For at least the last 6 month, this guy has been making repeated sexual comments about her body.. commenting on her butt, making remarks when she bends over, saying things as she walks away.. She's been texting me about these incidents as they happen and we have timestamped screenshots of those conversations. On one occasion, he sort of cornered her and another female coworker in a warehouse aisle, they were on their forklifts and he blocked them on his, and then showed them explicit text messages about his private sexual relationship with another woman. Sexual content, shown to two female coworkers who didn't ask and couldn't leave. She was afraid to report because she feared retaliation and that her coworker relationships would suffer since she'd be "the one who got someone fired" in a male-dominated environment but I kept encouraging her to report it. She finally worked up the courage and reported it last Thursday. She reported to her lead who brought it up the chain of command. It ended up going to like the head of the DC or something and thats who initially talked to her about her claim. This person told her something along the lines of "if it was my decision, he wouldn't have a job anymore." My wife never even talked to someone who is in an "HR Department".. They did offer her the option of a third-party investigation or letting the company handle it internally. She agreed to let them handle it internally. She trusted that they would take it seriously. They thanked her for that. All of this was verbal nothing in writing. They suspended him for misconduct and sent him home pending the investigation. They interviewed a few other women. The other female coworker who was cornered in the aisle confirmed that incident happened to the head of dc lady, I don't think anyone talked to an "HR Person" persay. My wife was told she'd get a follow-up interview, that never happened. She was only interviewed once, during her initial report. On Friday she didn't have to work with the guy, thankfully. But yesterday was their first day back after the report, the guy was called on-site for a meeting. They had him sign a no-retaliation agreement and allowed him back to work the next day. Same crew. Same shift. Same area as my wife. Their reasoning was "he said, she said" no witnesses physically heard the verbal comments he made to her over the months, so they said they couldn't fire someone based on that. They didn't fire him, didn't transfer him, didn't move him to a different shift. Nothing. It wasn't even initially an option to transfer her or the other guy to a different crew or shift or anything. My wife refused to continue to work with the guy after this and all the lady was saying was like ohhh but we dont want you to quit. LIKE WHAT? you are saying you would let my wife quit right now, like you still don’t believe shes serious about her claims?? She had to beg while crying to be transferred off the crew and they let her move after she persistently kept asking. I think they should have seen this immediately and stopped her and been like no we will transfer the other person to another crew/shift. But they didn't.. She was currently in a lead-in-training type role, it's not a formal promotion, but management picks people they think have potential to eventually become leads/supervisors and teaches them timesheets, paperwork, and operational stuff. By transferring to a new crew, she's losing out on that opportunity and experience. She reported the harassment and she's the one who essentially got demoted. within the same day this guy is sending text messages to people at work saying something along the lines of "I'm not gonna name names but I know who reported me and she just took it out of context." He didn't name her directly, but the message was sent to someone close to my wife, which is how she found out. This was reported to the company. Multiple coworkers have told my wife independently that this guy is a creep outside of work as well, one guy said his sister was doing some work to help him out but quit working with the guy after he said some creepy stuff and made her uncomfortable. I know that doesn't count for an internal workplace investigation, but this guy obviously does this kind of stuff.

Today my wife started work on the other crew and I'm having mixed feelings about encouraging her to report this. I feel like she's losing valuable experience having to transfer crews and it's going to set her back when the next position opens up.

Did the company meet its obligations under Oregon law?

Is my wife's situation, losing her lead-in-training role and essentially being forced to transfer crews after SHE reported, considered retaliation or an adverse employment action under Oregon law?

The text messages he's sending to coworkers about knowing who reported him and saying the claims were false after signing a no-retaliation agreement, does that constitute retaliation even if he didn't use her name?

Is it worth consulting with an employment attorney given that nothing was provided in writing, not the third-party investigation offer, not the investigation outcome, not any of it?

Doesn't the fact that there was a corroborating witness to at least one incident, plus timestamped text messages I received documenting incidents in real-time, change the he said she said framing the company used? They are basically saying my wife strategically sent me fake text messages about harrassment over 6 months just to randomly get this one guy fired??

My wife did submit a claim on the BOLI website and I requested a lawyer referral from the OS Bar.

Location: Oregon