Rosebud Restaurants will pay $1.9 million and establish a program to hire African-Americans as part of a settlement of a 4-year-old federal lawsuit that charged the Chicago-based restaurant chain with discriminating against some black job applicants.
The lawsuit, filed by U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September 2013, alleged that Rosebud refused to hire African-Americans at a number of its locations. The EEOC also charged that managers, including Rosebud owner Alex Dana, used racial slurs to refer to blacks.
The settlement was announced late Tuesday. In an emailed statement Wednesday, Rosebud said the consent decree was “in the best interests of our employees, staff and patrons.”
When the EEOC began investigating Rosebud hiring practices, many of its restaurants had no African-American employees, according to the EEOC. In some cases, applications from African-Americans had been discarded by restaurant managers immediately, according to EEOC attorneys Ann Henry and Diane Smason.
During their investigation, Smason and Henry sent letters to 20,000 to 30,000 applicants, asking if they were African-American. They identified 320 African-American applicants.
“We think the number of black applicants was much larger,” Smason said. “We can only provide relief to people who respond to us and tell us they are black.”
The settlement, approved by federal Magistrate Judge Mary Rowland, calls for Rosebud to pay the $1.9 million to African-American applicants who were denied jobs.
The company also has agreed 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.
“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,” Rosebud said in its statement.
The company added, “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.”
Rosebud currently owns and operates eight restaurants in the area: The Rosebud, Carmine’s, Rosebud on Rush, Rosebud Prime, Mama’s Boy, Rosebud Steakhouse, Rosebud Deerfield and Rosebud in Naperville.
The closed restaurants also included in the suit are Rosebud Old World Italian, Rosebud Theater District, Rosebud of Highland Park, Rosebud Burger and Comfort Foods, Rosebud Trattoria, Joe Fish, EATT, Bar Umbriago and Centro.
crshropshire@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @corilyns
