New Suits Allege Religious and Sex Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, and Retaliation
September 23, 2020
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has filed three new lawsuits against employers in Florida, Tennessee, and Washington, raising claims of religious discrimination, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation, respectively.
Could not train on Saturdays due to religion.The EEOC filed a lawsuit against Frito-Lay, Inc., alleging that the Plano, Texas-based subsidiary of PepsiCo that manufactures and distributes snack foods violated Title VII when it fired a newly promoted route sales representative because he could not train for the job on Saturdays due to his religious beliefs.
A West Palm Beach, Florida, Frito-Lay warehouse employee applied for and received a promotion to route sales representative. The employee completed about five weeks of training without having to train on Saturdays, the EEOC said. However, despite learning he could not work on Saturdays because of his Seventh-day Adventist religious beliefs, Frito-Lay allegedly scheduled him to train on Saturdays and terminated him when he failed to report to training on two consecutive Saturdays.
Women treated differently from men.Performance of Brentwood, L.P., dba Lexus of Cool Springs, violated Title VII when the automobile dealership subjected a female service consultant to different terms and conditions of employment than similarly situated male coworkers and then fired her because of her sex, according to the EEOC’s lawsuit. The employer owns and operates two Lexus car dealerships in the greater Nashville area, one of which is Lexus of Cool Springs.
In his first three months on the job, the service director allegedly replaced two women service consultants with multiple male consultants. The service director also purportedly approved five vacation days each for two men he had hired, despite their lack of accumulated leave time. In contrast, the Commission charges, he fired the last remaining female service consultant, who was the department’s top performer, for "poor attendance" after she tried to use one of her earned sick days.
Housekeepers sexually harassed. The EEOC also charged the owner (GIPHX10, LLC) of a Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham, a hotel located near the Seattle-Tacoma airport in Kent, Washington, with violating Title VII when it allowed a manager to sexually harass two Latina housekeepers and retaliated against one of them after she protested the illegal conduct.
A male manager at Hawthorn Suites allegedly harassed the women by cornering and groping them when they were alone cleaning hotel rooms, mocking them for objecting to the assaults, and making sexual comments to them. One housekeeper purportedly felt compelled to quit out of fear for her safety. After the other housekeeper, with the help of a bilingual coworker, reported the harassment to the general manager, he drastically cut her work hours and denied her an hourly raise given to other housekeepers, according to the federal agency.
