According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Razzoo’s, a Dallas/Fort Worth-based restaurant chain, will pay $1 million and furnish significant remedial relief to settle a sex discrimination lawsuit. Razzoo’s operates 11 Cajun food restaurants throughout the Dallas/Fort Worth metropolis and also has locations in Houston and Concord, North Carolina.
The EEOC said that Razzoo’s refused to hire or promote men to the position of bartender in its restaurants. Razzoo’s management set up and communicated to managers by e-mail a plan for an 80-20 ratio of women to men behind the bar. Before this pretrial settlement, male applicants and servers were expected to testify at trial that managers told them the company wanted mostly “girls” behind the bar. Men who worked as servers at the restaurants were generally denied promotion to bartender because of their gender. The few men who were promoted to bartender weren’t allowed to work lucrative “girls-only” bartending events.
“Some may think that sex sells drinks, but gender ratios are illegal,” said Suzanne M. Anderson, EEOC supervisory trial attorney and lead counsel on the lawsuit. “Razzoo’s decision to hire and promote by gender is a clear violation of federal law. A hiring ratio is illegal whether it is 80-20 whites to blacks or 80-20 women to men.”
In addition to the $775,000 to be divided among a class of male applicants, male servers, and male bartenders who were discriminated against, Razzoo’s also agreed to retain the services of an HR consultant or to develop an in-house HR department. The company also must provide equal employment opportunity training to all its employees and post an antidiscrimination notice, and the EEOC will monitor employee complaints of discrimination.
Walgreens to pay $24 million in landmark race discrimination case
A federal judge has granted final approval of a sweeping consent decree resolving a class race discrimination lawsuit filed by EEOC against Walgreen Co., the Deerfield, Illinois-based, national drug store chain. The decree, one of the largest monetary settlements in a race case by the EEOC, provides for the payment of more than $24 million to a class of thousands of African-American workers and orders comprehensive relief designed to improve the company’s promotion and store assignment practices.
The EEOC alleged that Walgreens discriminated against African-American retail management and pharmacy employees in promotion, compensation, and assignment. The monetary payments will be shared by approximately 10,000 African-American current and former store-level management employees across the country. Walgreens also will be required to retain outside consultants to review and make recommendations regarding its employment practices, including standardized, nondiscriminatory promotion and store assignment standards, procedures, and promotional benchmarks.