Outback Steakhouse Pays $19 Million To Settle Discrimination Lawsuit
Outback Steakhouse settled a gender discrimination lawsuit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") for $19 million. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of over a thousand female employees in restaurants throughout the country. The lawsuit alleges that Outback Steakhouse unlawfully discriminated against female employees by treating the females different from male employees. In the legal industry this is known as discrimination based on terms and conditions of employment. The female employees were denied equal opportunities for advancement within the company.
When this happens to female employees it is known as the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling at a corporation takes place when females cannot get promoted to the higher-level profit-sharing management positions within an organization. In this case the female employees at Outback Steakhouse were not able to advance into upper management where the lucrative jobs are. In this particular case, the EEOC claimed females were denied favorable job assignments, including kitchen management experience. This is important because without experience in those positions employees were unable to make it into top management. If you look at the management profile of most corporations, they are still made up of white males.
“There are still too many glass ceilings left to shatter in workplaces throughout corporate America,” said EEOC Acting Chairman Stuart J. Ishimaru. “The EEOC will continue to bring class lawsuits like this one against employers who engage in gender discrimination on a systemic scale. Hopefully this major settlement will remind employers about the perils of perpetuating promotion practices that keep women from advancing at work.”
This settlement is good news for former employees because the $19 million will be administered through a claims process and all female workers employed at corporately-owned Outback restaurants from 2002 to the present who have at least three years of tenure may get money from the settlement. There are many corporations in Illinois and the Chicago area that provide glass ceilings for females employees. If you believe you are not being provided with the same opportunities in employment as your male counterparts you should contact my office to discuss your situation.
