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Women still waiting for workplace equality

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So, how long does it take before everyone gets it? That's one of the questions that arises from a verdict this month in which a jury in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati awarded three former general managers at Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. about $200,000 each in back pay and punitive damages.

Two of the employees, Tina M. Reynolds and Stephanie Ochoa, charged in the complaint, filed in March 2013, that they had been discharged and replaced by a male employee despite having received good reviews.

But it is the circumstances surrounding the third employee, Elizabeth A. Rogers, that stand out. According to the complaint, Ms. Rogers had notified a supervisor she was pregnant with twins in February 2011. She delivered the babies at 24 weeks on May 29. One twin did not survive, and the other was hospitalized.

Ms. Rogers returned to work Aug. 2, 2011. A day later, an area manager who had covered her store while she was out, asked Ms. Rogers to cover for him the rest of that week, but she could not because of a doctor's appointment for her son.

About a month later, a risk management audit was conducted of Ms. Roger's store and she was given a “B” grade. But 10 days later, the area manager whom Ms. Rogers had refused to help, gave her a “D.”

In November, he told her that her store was understaffed, though she told him she had just hired seven employees. The manager fired her about a week-and-a-half later.

Of course, this is Ms. Rogers' side of it, but it appears the jury found her — as well as the other two fired managers —credible. It awarded all three back pay plus $85,000 each in punitive damages, for a total of almost $607,000. By the way, all three women had been fired by the same manager, according to a news report.

Whether the chain will appeal the jury verdicts or ultimately succeeds remains unknown.

Still, it would have been nice if someone had taken a closer look at what was going on in those Chipotle stores — the fact alone that three women had been fired by the same man maybe should have raised some suspicion — and perhaps warranted a little bit more digging.

Meanwhile the firing manager is now apparently working at another company, and Chipotle may be stuck with not only paying the jury award, but also with who-knows-how-much in attorneys' fees.

Chipotle is not alone. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported there were 29,396 sex discrimination claims for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, which accounted for 29.3% of all claims. That was up only 1.4% from fiscal 2014, but that number should be decreasing, not increasing.

And for all the lip service paid to gender equality, it seems we are still facing in the wrong direction.