Chicago meat processing firm settles EEOC discrimination suit
Reprints
A Chicago meat processing company charged with discriminating against Black applicants and workers will pay $1.1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency said Friday.
The EEOC said its investigation of Chicago Meat Authority Inc. found the company favored hiring Hispanic applicants over black applicants even though it is located in a largely Black neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side.
The company allegedly discriminated against Black applicants in hiring and subjected Black employees to racial harassment, the agency said. It also said a Black employee was fired because of his race and in retaliation for complaining about racial harassment.
The company was charged with violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The consent decree settling the case, which was filed in 2018 in U.S. District Court in Chicago, requires Chicago Meat Authority to pay a total of $1.1 million to the discrimination victims and to hire rejected applicants who still want jobs at the company. It also prohibits the company from discriminating in the future.
Chicago Meat Authority President Jordan Dorfman said in a statement that the company “has embraced being an equal opportunity employer” since its 1990 founding, and the case was a result of complaints by a “handful” of employees who had been terminated in 2013.
He said that while the company has denied all claims, it made a business decision to settle the case, “without any admission of improper practices, rather than continue with a very costly defense.”
