Discrimination has been in the news a lot lately, and restaurants aren’t immune. Just recently Rosebud Restaurants agreed to pay $1.9 million “and establish a program to hire African-Americans” as part of a settlement agreement. The settlement itself is the result of a 4-year federal lawsuit “that charged the Chicago-based restaurant chain with discriminating against some black job applicants.”
Discrimination has been in the news a lot lately, and restaurants aren’t immune. Just recently Rosebud Restaurants agreed to pay $1.9 million “and establish a program to hire African-Americans” as part of a settlement agreement. The settlement itself is the result of a 4-year federal lawsuit “that charged the Chicago-based restaurant chain with discriminating against some black job applicants.”
The lawsuit was filed back in September of 2013 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The commission alleged that the restaurant “refused to hire African-Americans at a number of its locations,” and even claimed that managers, “including Rosebud owner Alex Dana, used racial slurs to refer to blacks.”
So how did the EEOC discover the discrimination? Well, the Commission decided to launch an investigation into the restaurant’s hiring practices. During their investigation, it discovered that many of the Rosebud restaurants “had no African-American employees.” Additionally, “in some cases, applications from African-Americans had been discarded by restaurant managers immediately,” according to EEOC attorneys Ann Henry and Diane Smason.
As part of the investigation, the Commission “sent letters to 20,000 to 30,000 applicants, asking if they were African-American.” Of those letters, 320 African-American applicants responded, though Smason and Henry suspect the number of African-American applicants to be much larger.
As a result of their investigation, a lawsuit was brought against Rosebud Restaurants on charges of discrimination. Now, the settlement will result in the company paying “$1.9 million to African-American applicants who were denied jobs” based on their race. Additionally, Rosebud Restaurants will have to “implement hiring goals for qualified black applicants, with the aim that 11 percent of Rosebud’s future workforce will be African-American. The settlement also requires Rosebud to recruit African-American applicants, train employees and managers about race discrimination and retaliation, and provide periodic reports to the EEOC on compliance with the decree’s terms for four years,” according to the lawsuit.
In response to the settlement, Rosebud issued a statement saying:
“We are committed to operating with integrity and conduct business in an ethical and legal manner, and we understand that we all can do more to demonstrate our commitment to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We consider it our mission to treat our employees as family — with honesty and respect — and we are proud of our employment record and the diversity of our workforce. We have not, do not and will not tolerate discrimination of any type toward employees or applicants.”
Sources:
Rosebud Restaurants to pay $1.9 million to settle race discrimination suit
EEOC: Rosebud Restaurants will pay $1.9M; recruit and hire blacks
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