Posted on June 20th, 2019
Please find a full transcript of this video below.
What’s up fellow entrepreneurs? It’s John Fagerholm, home again with Metal Law Group.
Today I want to talk about discrimination claims.
I’ve seen a decrease in discrimination claims and an increase in retaliation claims, and sexual harassment claims. But discrimination claims are still out there and they’re still big-ticket items, so you want to avoid them at all costs.
You’d be surprised at what’s considered a discrimination claim. You’d also be surprised at where discrimination claims come from. As a business owner, you have to keep an eye out and you have to see what your employees are doing, and what they’re talking about, and if they’re playing around with each other and what they’re joking about because there’s a serious liability.
So I have a friend that also defends claims and she was telling me that one of her clients runs a restaurant and within that restaurant, they have Spanish speaking Latinos in the, as basically all of the cooks in the kitchen, were all Spanish speaking Latinos.
They were all younger guys and there seems to be a difference in the younger generation, and what’s acceptable and what’s not acceptable and I don’t think the law has caught up with that.
So within the kitchen, the young Latino kids were joking around amongst themselves and they were using the N word. Not calling anybody the N word, but just as part of their talking. And I’m just assuming it comes from music and people in the younger generation more willing to use that word.
So, as they were throwing this word around, as they were talking, there was an African-American waitress that was new there, and she was offended by it.
And so she did report it, they were told to stop using that word and that it wasn’t appropriate, whether there was an African-American there or not, it just wasn’t appropriate in the workplace.
They indicated that they weren’t using it as something hostile, it’s just part of their generation and that they say that to each other. Kind of like the British using mate, I guess.
So even though it was reported and it was taken care of, the supervisor indicated that they can’t use that word anymore, she still ended up filing a lawsuit, still ended up costing a lot of money, it did settle, from what I understand, but it settled for a very, very big number.
So word to the wise, you’ve got to, whether it’s part of the generation or whether it’s a word that people think they can use, whether it’s within their own community, I think even African-Americans, if it was African-Americans in the kitchen working and they were using that word, I think it still would have been a discrimination claim and a problem.
So for future reference and for application, make sure that whatever’s being said on the streets is not being said within the workplace.
Thanks again, till next time.
