Pregnancy discrimination cases don’t get much stranger than this.
A Peoria, AZ, restaurant has agreed to pay $15,000 to settle a pregnancy bias lawsuit after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) claimed the employer wouldn’t let pregnant women work on Sundays.
Why Sundays? According to the suit, the management of the Sandbar Mexican Grill started the policy because “it believed its male customers did not wish to see pregnant women while they watched Sunday football games.”
The EEOC went on to say that Sundays were one of the best days to work and, by removing pregnant women from the schedule, discriminated against them based on their status.
The restaurant denied the allegation but ultimately decided to settle. In addition to the monetary settlement, the restaurant will also:
- provide anti-bias training to all staffers at the Peoria location
- review its policies to make sure they prohibit pregnancy bias, sex discrimination and retaliation
- take steps to investigate claims of sex and pregnancy bias and take appropriate action, and
- post a notice that sex and pregnancy discrimination — or retaliation for complaining about it — is unlawful.
