Citing a longstanding culture of sexual discrimination, a lawsuit filed in November in U.S. District Court in Peoria is seeking damages from Sherman’s Place appliance and furniture store in excess of $2 million plus legal fees on behalf of three former Sherman’s employees.

The three women are charging commissions were calculated to favor male employees, customer referrals were made favoring male employees and sexually explicit language was tolerated. In the lawsuit, the women claim they were subjected to rude and humiliating comments from male employees in front of other employees and customers. The women claim their complaints triggered retaliation.

Two of the women claim they were owed commissions when they left the company based on sales during their employment, and those commissions are still unpaid.

Multiple calls seeking comment over several days to Paul Sherman, general manager and son of store founders Jack and Sharon Sherman, were not returned. The business began in 1976 in Peoria and now has stores in Peoria, Bloomington/Normal and LaSalle/Peru.

Attorney Richard Steagall is representing the women.

“I’ve been doing this for more than 20 years and this case is one of the more extreme ones I’ve seen,” Steagall said. “This is a very strong case with multiple witnesses.”

The women filed a charge of discrimination with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, and the charge was simultaneously filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After reviewing the case, a right of notice to sue for sex discrimination was issued by the EEOC.

Two of the women said they have documentation supporting their claims.

According to the lawsuit, both women were top sales people despite a system of customer referrals that gave priority to male salesmen.

One of the plaintiffs, the human resources director at the store, said she initially defended management when complaints reached her but said she began to see a pattern of discrimination and began voicing her concern. At that point, she said, the company began an investigation of her.

Another plaintiff, married for 26 years, said she stayed at the store because she was earning a good income of more than $100,000 from commissions as a top sales person and because she has a daughter with an incurable auto-immune disease and the family struggles with large medical expenses.

“We worked 100 percent on commissions,” she said.

Salespeople on the floor of the store communicate by an internal radio system. Female customers entering the store were often discussed via the radio system among all employees, and the female customers were assessed based on their physical appearance and sex appeal. One plaintiff described statements made into the radio as “horrific sexual talk.”

Barbara Miller, co-president of the Peoria chapter of the National Organization for Women, said she was contacted by the former Sherman’s employees, and a group of NOW members met with them. They discussed the complaint against Sherman’s.

Miller declined to go into specifics about the pending litigation but said NOW explained that sexual discrimination in the workplace is not a resolved issue from the past but is an ongoing problem many women still face. NOW members said it’s easy for women to rationalize their situation and convince themselves what is happening to them is not sexual discrimination, however, this issue can’t be redressed unless women step forward and speak out about their situation, Miller said.