St. Pete Times:A federal labor investigation that began when two former Outback Steakhouse employees complained of alleged sex discrimination has ballooned into a nationwide lawsuit with more than 150,000 potential plaintiffs, including nearly every woman who has worked at one of the Tampa chain’s 700 U.S. restaurants since 2002.
A national class-action lawsuit seemed unlikely back in 2003, when Jennifer Turner-Rieger filed an EEOC complaint against her former employer of more than 10 years. According to court filings, Turner-Rieger began her Outback career as a waitress in the Denver area. She eventually was promoted to a management position overseeing servers, hostesses and the bar – one of three top positions at the store level. But the promotion came only after she assured regional manager Tom Flanagan, who allegedly had told staff that “cute girls” should remain servers, that she wasn’t planning to have children.
Kelly Altizer experienced a similar career arc at a nearby Outback. But like Turner-Rieger, she says she was paid less than her male colleagues and finally quit after repeatedly being denied the chance to become a store manager. Both women sought hundreds of thousands of dollars from Outback during initial settlement talks.
Only three of the 64 management positions within Flanagan’s region were held by women, the EEOC says. All kitchen managers were men, and only one store manager was female.
Though an Outback spokesman declined to comment Wednesday, the company says each of its 58 regional managers makes hiring, training and promotion decisions based on merit, not gender. Outback says the EEOC is merely on a “fishing expedition,” and the company is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed.
Read on: Suit against Outback growsÂ