The suit claims what came after his HR report looked a lot like retaliation
Gap, Inc. is facing a federal lawsuit from a long-time contractor who says the company's HR department failed to act on his sexual harassment claims.
Michael Ronsini, who ran landscaping and snow removal operations at Gap's New York campus for six years through his company Two Brothers Property Maintenance, filed the suit on February 17 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. He is alleging sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and retaliation against Gap and two of its employees — Senior Maintenance Manager Eamonn Egan and HR Business Partner Lauren Dupuis.
The case, which has not yet been decided, paints a troubling picture of what can go wrong when a harassment report reaches HR and nothing meaningful follows.
Ronsini says he worked without a single documented performance issue from 2018 until August 2023, when Egan took over as his direct supervisor. Within days, according to the suit, Egan made a sexually explicit and degrading remark about Ronsini in front of other employees. Ronsini says he immediately pushed back.
What allegedly came next is where the case gets especially relevant for HR leaders.
By December 2023, the suit claims, Egan began lodging what Ronsini describes as fabricated performance complaints — accusing him of failures in landscaping bed maintenance, improper equipment storage, and property damage. Ronsini contends these accusations contradicted...
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