Bay Area Radio: Sheryl Raines Files Harassment Suit vs. KCBS

Sheryl Raines

Former KCBS 740 AM / 106.9 FM traffic reporter Sheryl Raines has filed a lawsuit against the station, complaining that she was fired in retaliation for repeatedly reporting to management that a male employee was sexually harassing women in the newsroom.

The East Bay Times reports the complaint — Sheryl Raines v. Entercom Communications Corp. — was filed in San Francisco Superior Court Wednesday. It alleges that KCBS told Raines she was being terminated because the station wanted a “different sound,” but then replaced her with another woman “whose on-air voice is startlingly similar to that of Ms. Raines.”

Sharon Vinick, a lawyer representing Raines, said in a statement, “Anyone who has driven in Bay Area traffic trusts Sheryl’s voice. In this case, she used her voice to speak up for women in her workplace. We intend to prove that instead of listening and taking action to stop the harassment, KCBS fired the messenger and protected the harasser. That’s against the law.”

Raines worked for KCBS, which is owned by Entercom Communications Corp., for nearly 30 years.

In the lawsuit, Raines says that during a retirement party for a colleague in March of 2018, she heard “many stories from her co-workers about inappropriate and offensive conduct towards women” by a station engineer. On another occasion, she says she witnessed the engineer “making sexually charged and lewd comments” to women in the newsroom.

The lawsuit claims that Raines repeatedly complained about these and other incidents to station management, but no action was taken. Instead, she alleges, management took retaliatory action against her.