Arizona: Discrimination suit against RDs Drive-In settled

[Harold Schiffman]

Discrimination suit against RDs settled
Modified: Wednesday, Nov 21st, 2007
BY: Lee Pulaski — Lake Powell Chronicle




PAGE — After five years of legal wrangling, RD's Drive In is finally
able to claim the battle with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission over the restaurant's English-only policy is over.
ProEnglish, an organization advocating the English language in the
United States, made the announcement last week. The organization's
director, K.C. McAlpin, sent a press release stating the reinstatement
of the policy requiring RD's employees to speak English while they are
on the job is "a victory for small business owners everywhere who want
to maintain a safe, non-threatening work environment for their
employees with common sense policies on language in the workplace."
The EEOC sued the owners of RD's in 2002 when it claimed the policy,
passed two years earlier, was a form of national-origins
discrimination against the Navajo employees. Four female employees
left the restaurant's employ after the policy was put into place, and
the EEOC had sought punitive damages totaling $200,000, as well as
back pay for those employees.

Richard Kidman, who owns RD's with his wife, Shauna, said on Friday
that it is wonderful to have the lawsuit behind him. The policy, which
had to be rescinded during the duration of the lawsuit, was put back
into place last week. "We had to agree to rescind it, but then it was
also understood that, if we wanted to reinstate it, we had to go ahead
and resubmit it to the EEOC, which we did," Kidman said. The policy
went through several legal groups to make sure everything was in
accordance with the law, he added.

RD's is making its employee handbook available to anyone from the
public. The section addressing language on the job points out that
employees must speak English to each other and to customers while they
are on the clock. The employees are allowed to speak in their native
tongue during breaks and personal time. Also, the employees can speak
a different language if a customer indicates he or she would have
difficulty communicating in English. "The sad part is, that policy is
pretty much the same as it was seven years ago," Kidman said. "The
EEOC has probably spent close to a million dollars trying to prosecute
us for something that shouldn't have happened."

The purpose for implementing the language policy in 2000 was mainly to
address employee morale. Kidman pointed out that some of the male
Navajo employees were making vulgar and sexually suggestive comments
to some of the female employees. He and his family members do not
speak the Navajo language, so there was no indication of an issue
until employees started quitting suddenly.
"We didn't know it until one of the girls came in tears and said,
'I've got to quit,'" he said. "(Employees) used their language as a
weapon. They had all these names they would call us in Navajo, and we
didn't know they were doing it." Because of the language barrier,
Kidman was baffled when employees quit suddenly with no clear
indication of why.

"They just walked out and didn't show up," he said. "One of the young
girls came back and said she quit because they were talking about
taking her out in the back and raping her. Once we established the
English-only (policy), the problems went away." Kidman realized that
something had to be done before employees brought a sexual harassment
suit against the restaurant for what was being said in Navajo. He went
to the EEOC's Web site to craft the policy. Ironically, it was the
EEOC who sued claiming the policy was a civil rights violation.
Another twist of irony was that, when Kidman implemented the policy,
the male employees all agreed to sign. It was female employees who
quit over the policy, the owner of RD's noted.

Kidman still considers the whole matter to be ridiculous, and went so
far as to say that the EEOC tries to bully small businesses like his
over these language policies until the businesses either pay to end
the matter or have to shut their doors. He expressed pride that he had
to do neither."I wish we had been able to go to trial and establish
that they were really committing a frivolous lawsuit against us, so we
could at least collect the money to reimburse the legal people. There
has been a lot of money invested in this," Kidman said. "It would have
been nice to reimburse those guys."

Fortunately for him, very little had to come out of his pocket. David
Seldon, an attorney from Phoenix, agreed to a lot of pro bono work,
but when the free work started reaching six-digit values, the Mountain
States Legal Foundation, and later ProEnglish, stepped in to advocate
for the Kidman family. If it had not been for the pro bono work,
Kidman is certain the family would have lost RD's.

"We would have been bankrupt," he said. "Our attorney said, 'You're
not going to survive this by yourself.'"

Kidman pointed out that the community was really supportive of RD's
during the lawsuit. He did not see any significant drop in business.

"I think most people understood what was going on," he said. "This is
a lawsuit that should never have happened."

RD's English-on-the-job policy

RD's is a food service business, which relies on teamwork to provide
superior service to its customers. Rd's expects its employees to treat
its customers, fellow employees and supervisors with courtesy and
respect at all times. Therefore, RD's will not tolerate language or
communications of any kind that are hostile, rude or offensive to
customers or to other RD's employees. This includes the use of swear
words or vulgar language when communicating with customers or other
RD's employees.

RD's is also a restaurant that uses hot and dangerous equipment. RD's
is committed to providing safe and wholesome food for its customers
and a safe and courteous working environment for its employees.
Therefore, employees are required to use the English language while at
work to communicate with customers, RD's manager, supervisors and
other RD's employees.

This rule does not apply during employees' lunch breaks, work breaks,
calls home and any other personal time when employees are not on the
clock. If a customer uses a language other than English when
addressing an employee, thereby indicating a preference for
communicating in that language, the employee can respond in that
language if he or she is capable of doing so in order to serve the
customer. At all other times while at work, employees are required to
use the English language.

The use of offensive, discourteous, disrespectful, hostile or rude
language of any type, including swearing or vulgarity, will subject an
employee to discipline and possible termination. Such discipline may
involve warnings, but serious violations may result in more severe
discipline without prior warnings.

Inadvertent and isolated violations of RD's English-on-the-job policy
may be handled without resorting to employee discipline. The choice of
whether such violations would be considered grounds for discipline or
possible termination depends on the specific circumstances of the
situation as determined by RD's manager and supervisors.

http://www.lakepowellchronicle.com/fe_view_article.php?story_id=833&page_id=77&heading=0

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who
disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************