Workers at an Albertville plant subjected cleaning employees to unwanted sexual touching, harassment, and attempted to rape one of them, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The E.E.O.C. filed the suit against Delaware-based Mueller Co. and South Carolina-based IH Services, contending the two companies violated federal law by subjecting female IH Services employees to a hostile work environment, and retaliating against them when they complained.

The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

According to the EEOC, its Birmingham District office completed an investigation and first attempted to reach a settlement. The EEOC is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the victims, and injunctive relief against the companies.

Attempts to contact Mueller and IH Services for comment were not immediately successful.

The suit stems from incidents that allegedly happened from about May of 2018 until late August 2020.

Staffing agency IH Services assigned women to provide cleaning services at Mueller’s Albertville fire hydrant manufacturing plant.

According to the suit, several of Mueller’s male employees subjected at least three female IH Services employees to unwanted sexual touching and comments about their bodies and sex lives. They also allegedly solicited the female cleaning crew for sex, asked to watch them have sex, exposed themselves and attempted to rape one of the female employees.

At least three women complained to several IH Services and Mueller managers, but the harassment continued, according to the suit. Instead, the women say IH Services retaliated against them, by reducing their hours, transferring them to undesirable shifts, suspending or firing them.

“Title VII (of the 1964 Civil Rights Act) requires employers to provide a workplace free from severe or pervasive sexual harassment, even when the harassers are not its own employees,” EEOC Birmingham District Director Bradley Anderson said. “Likewise, Title VII requires employers to protect contract workers assigned to its workplace from harassment by its own employees.”