Posted by
Playful Walrus on Tuesday, November 03, 2009 4:31:50 PM
A Pasadena, California-based restaurant chain has agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle charges over a policy that went back to 1938, but was ended in 2004. Jerry Hirsch reports in the Los Angeles Times.
The Lawry's chain of high-end steakhouses will pay more than $1 million to settle a federal discrimination lawsuit contending that for decades it hired only women as servers, the government said Monday.
The lawsuit, filed in 2006 by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, said that a company as large as Pasadena-based Lawry's Restaurants Inc. should have known that the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited such a policy.
Now we all know that this law was really meant to protect African-Americans, Latino-Americans, Female-Americans, and other victims of Evil WASP Males. But the law has to be applied equally, so in this case it is going to help men.
The case was based on a 2003 complaint by a busboy who said he was denied a higher-paid position as a waiter because of his gender.
Well, yeah.
The case was unusual because the standard employment complaint against expensive restaurants is that they fail to promote women to server positions, said Anna Y. Park, the EEOC attorney who handled the case.
And the busboy could have gotten a job at one of those places.
Under the consent decree, Lawry's agreed to pay $500,000 to men denied jobs as waiters for the chain. Park said several hundred people might be eligible to share the compensation.
If a lot of men come forward, they're each going to get a small amount. Such is the nature of these things. There are many class action lawsuits that make lawyers rich but bring very little to the supposed victims.
Lawry's also agreed to set aside $225,000 to train its workers to comply with discrimination laws.
The company will spend an additional $300,000 for an advertising campaign to let the public know that it now hires men as waiters.
Hooters seems to still be getting away with it.
Yes, in 1964, systemic discrimination against African-Americans and women was a huge problem. It’s much less of a problem now. Much less. There are a lot fewer bigots who will deny someone a promotion based on their sex or skin color. Realistically, it is very easy for someone who has been discriminated against because of their skin color or sex to go elsewhere, especially if they’re good employees. Isn't it time we got back to allowing business owners (as long as they don't accept tax money) to run their businesses the way they want to? If someone wants to only hire young, fit lesbian Latinas, well then fine. That excludes me, but I can go elsewhere.