Dive Brief:
- Swami’s 101, owners of San Diego-based restaurant chain Swami’s Bistro and casual restaurant Honey’s Cafe, will pay $650,000 to settle allegations of sexual harassment and retaliation filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2023, the agency announced Tuesday.
- EEOC alleged that beginning around 2019, the restaurants allowed male supervisors and co-workers to sexually harass young female employees, including teenagers. Many young women complained and then faced retaliation or were forced to quit, EEOC said.
- In addition to paying $650,000, Swami’s 101 agreed to retain an equal employment opportunity monitor, establish a complaint procedure and hotline and conduct mandatory training for supervisory and nonsupervisory staff, among other actions. Swami’s 101 denied the allegations but settled to avoid the expense of litigation, according to the consent decree.
Dive Insight:
According to EEOC’s complaint against Swami’s 101, the company “engaged in a pattern of hiring teenage girls as young as 16 years old based on their appearance and vulnerability, using manipulative tactics to subject them to a highly sexualized, hostile work environment.”
This included managers inappropriately touching and making sexual comments toward young female workers, favoring or punishing them based on how they responded to their advances, looking at pornographic or sexual content around them and more, according to EEOC. When the owner received a complaint of sexual harassment, he “laughed it off,” the agency alleged.
“We continue to see young women experience sexual harassment in the restaurant industry, often during their first job experience,” Anna Park, regional attorney for EEOC’s Los Angeles district office, said in a statement. “Employers have a duty to protect young workers by putting in place strong policies and procedures that ensure managers and supervisors are held accountable for maintaining a safe and respectful workplace.”
In EEOC’s 2024-2028 enforcement plan, the agency expanded its “vulnerable and underserved worker” category to include teenage workers. To implement the plan, EEOC wrote that federal and district offices would identify these and other vulnerable workers “for focused attention,” based on how the agency could most effectively direct its resources to protect them.
While many priorities appear to have changed along with the change in administrations early this year, EEOC’s focus on sexual harassment against women and young female workers remains consistent. In May, the agency touted its filing of multiple sexual harassment lawsuits on behalf of young female workers and noted it had recovered more than $1.2 million in settlements related to sexual harassment charges, including sexual harassment of minors.
