Workplace harassment of people with chemical sensitivities

People with MCS are sometimes harassed at work by supervisors and colleagues.

Keywords: chemical sensitivity, MCS, workplace, harassment, attack, assault, fragrance, perfume, anaphylactic shock

When people get MCS, they are often faced with the dilemma whether to tell the boss or not. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, with later update, is clear that an employer must accommodate someone with MCS, within reason, since “breathing” is a necessary function. But disclosing such a vulnerability can invite harassment from both supervisors and colleagues.

Since MCS is sometimes falsely portrayed as “not legitimate” by popular media, bosses and colleagues may feel justified in ignoring or even ridiculing the needs of someone with MCS.

There are no studies of what the general population think about people with MCS, but according to Scientific American (Hutson, 2019), people with disabilities tie with overweight people as the group subjected to the most implicit bias (ahead of race, sexuality, skin tone and age). A British study shows that workers with disabilities were much more likely to suffer harassments than other workers (Fevre, 2013).

A request for toning down the use of fragrances is often seen as an invasion of people’s personal freedom, just as it used to with tobacco use.

Changes to the work setup to improve the air quality for the MCS sufferer often involve moving him or her to a private room or next to a window that can be opened. However, this may be seen by colleagues as bestowing special privileges to someone they consider “undeserving.”

In some cases people may even feel “powerful” if they can hurt someone else, now they know their vulnerability and it doesn’t look like there will be any repercussions from management.

Harassment at the office

The worst case of workplace harassment this writer is aware of was against a federal employee in Washington, DC (he wishes to be anonymous). He had worked there for several years before he got sick with MCS. Fragrances were a particular problem, and there were several people in the department who loved the stuff. He pleaded with them to use less, but it had the opposite effect – they used more. A sympathetic colleague even forwarded him e-mails where some of the harassers conspired to all wear the strongest perfumes they owned on certain days.

His weekends were spent recovering from the toxic attacks. His work life became a hell.

He asked management for help, but it was reluctant. They would not ask the staff to lay off their fragrances. Eventually he was allowed a private office, but this further incensed his colleagues as that was a status symbol. The harassers would make excuses to walk into his office wearing their strong perfume. (This has also happened to others (McCormick, 2001).

The poor guy was eventually allowed to work from home, but just a couple days a week.

He struggled on for several years that way, until he was able to retire because of age. He did not try to get on disability.

This all happened around year 2000, when any sort of MCS harassment suit was impossible to win – and he would not consider it anyway. He was not the type that stood up for himself.