Safeway Employees Announce the Filing of a Charge With the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Business Wire, Nov 16, 1998

OAKLAND, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 16, 1998--Today five women employed by Safeway, Inc. announced the filing of a charge of discrimination against Safeway with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the State of California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

The filing of a charge with the EEOC and the state agency is required before the filing of a lawsuit under Title VII of federal Civil Rights laws or California's Fair Employment and Housing Act. The women, members of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1179, are represented by Oakland attorneys Matthew Ross and Margot Rosenberg of the law firm Leonard, Carder, Nathan, Zuckerman, Ross, Chin and Remar.

The EEOC charge alleges that Safeway's "Superior Customer Service" and related programs are forcing employees to smile at, make eye contact with and otherwise engage in overtly solicitous interactions with customers under the threat of disciplinary action. This program, which is rigorously enforced by the use of "Mystery Shoppers," has led to a higher incidence of sexual harassment by customers. The charge alleges that by creating conditions which expose employees to sexual harassment from customers, the Company has tolerated if not fostered, a "hostile work environment," a recognized basis for sexual harassment under federal and state anti-discrimination laws.

Charging-party Richelle Roberts, who works at Safeway's store in Lafayette, Calif., as a produce clerk, explained the basis for the charge: "We have no quarrel with the idea of providing our customers with excellent customer service. The Company is right to stress service. But the Company goes too far when it makes smiling into a work rule and attempts to regulate precisely how we interact with our customers. A food clerk in Monterey was just fired because when she thanked a customer for shopping Safeway, she forgot to use the customer's last name."

Added another charging party, Amy Kinyon, "By rigidly enforcing these kinds of requirements, especially with the use of Mystery Shoppers, the Company is forcing us to suspend our natural self-defense mechanism of avoiding contact with men who act inappropriately towards us."

"I enjoy serving all of my customers," added Kinyon, "including our male customers. And, almost all my male customers are no different from women shoppers. But there also are plenty of creeps out there or just plain lonely guys who `hit on' us and we're open targets in these stores. The problem has always been there, but the new `always-smile, always-make-eye-contact' rules have made it much worse."

Roberts stated: "Some customers mistake our friendliness for flirtation. We need the Company to tell all women it's OK to avoid interacting with a customer if he is acting inappropriately to you. The way it is now at Safeway, women are afraid to do that."

Attorney Ross explained that the EEOC charge is premised on a relatively new area of anti-discrimination laws called "Third Party Harassment." "The vast majority of race or sex discrimination cases involve hiring, promotion, etc. policies of the company, or perhaps, discrimination by a supervisor. The `hostile work environment' cases go further and hold a company liable for tolerating sexual harassment or racist conduct by employees directed at other employees. In this case, we are at the frontier of the law because the sexually offensive conduct has been initiated by `third parties'. Still, the EEOC and the Courts have recognized that a Company is liable for creating a hostile work environment if its policies tolerate or expose female employees to sexually offensive conduct of the type that occurs in these grocery stores to an alarming extent."

The EEOC charges are related to a six-month campaign being waged by these women, the employees' union, Local 1179 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Martinez, Calif., and East Bay UFCW Local 373, located in Vallejo. These unions have filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Safeway concerning these programs.

Local 1179 President Barbara Carpenter explained: "Safeway is required by federal labor laws to consult with the Union before they roll-out programs like this, which have a huge impact on workers. In this case, they instituted the use of these `Mystery Shoppers' -- who would have been called company spies in an earlier era -- without so much as a `heads-up' phone call to the Union. We want them to sit down and bargain with us over modifications of these programs, to make them less intimidating to the food clerks."

The charge was filed with the Oakland district office of the EEOC. It is available from Leonard, Carder, Nathan, Zuckerman, Ross, Chin & Remar law firm on request.

Contact attorneys Matthew Ross or Margot Rosenberg at Leonard, Carder, Nathan, Zuckerman, Ross, Chin & Remar at 1330 Broadway, Suite 1450, Oakland, CA 94612, at Phone No. 510/272-0169. UFCW Local 1179 President Barbara Carpenter and Local 373 President Linda Russell also are available for comment at Phone Numbers 925/228-8800 and 707/553-1289, respectively.