Sexual harassment is pervasive in the restaurant service and hospitality industries in the US and more claims of this kind are\u00a0reported\u00a0in the industry than any other sector of the American economy.
\nA 2021 survey by One Fair Wage found\u2002over 70%\u2002of female restaurant employees have been sexually harassed at least once while working in the industry, with 44% reporting they experienced sexual harassment from someone in a management or ownership role.
\nA May 2018 survey by Restaurant Opportunities Centers United found\u00a034%\u2002of women who formerly worked as tipped restaurant workers left their jobs due to sexual harassment they experienced in the workplace.
\nIn the wake of the #MeToo movement, worker groups and unions have been pushing for legislation to protect workers from sexual harassment on the job, including\u00a0legislation\u2002at local levels to enact\u00a0panic buttons\u2002for workers in the hospitality industry.
\nBut big corporations, such as JC Resorts, have\u2002spent\u2002millions of dollars in opposition to initiatives that would require panic buttons for hospitality workers.
\nRestaurants from fast-food corporations such as\u00a0McDonald\u2019s\u00a0to restaurants owned and operated by the celebrity chef\u00a0Mario Batali\u00a0have faced also high-profile lawsuits and allegations of permitting a workplace culture where sexual harassment is allowed to persist and victims are retaliated against.
\nExamples of abuse are common.
\nWhen four young women began working at the Los Serranos Golf Club in Chino Hills,\u00a0California, a country club and two-golf course resort in one of the wealthiest suburban cities outside of Los Angeles, they immediately began experiencing sexual harassment from a senior chef at the resort. Over the course of their employment from 2021 into 2022 the harassment gradually escalated.
\nThe club is part of the JC Resorts portfolio, a luxury resort owner and operator in southern California.
\nThe women, Jalyn Ito, Reagan Coburn, Daniela Serna and Ariana Tan have recently\u00a0filed lawsuits\u00a0against the club and JC Resorts, alleging they experienced rampant sexual harassment on the job. They say that upon filing formal complaints with the human resources department, an investigation was conducted and the chef was only demoted, leaving the women forced to continue working with them while they then experienced retaliatory behavior.
\n\u201cI felt really traumatized by this entire experience,\u201d said Tan. \u201cThe fact that me and the other girls are so young and we\u2019re challenging such a huge corporation should serve as a warning to employers that the younger generation is sick of being marginalized and we\u2019re not going to put up with misogyny in the workplace.\u201d
\nShe described the need to hold those in charge accountable for a lack of action and to address these issues of sexual harassment in the workplace not being taken seriously by employers.
\n\u201cI felt like I\u2019m at the top of this burning building, crying for help, and no one has listened to us. I felt like we just didn\u2019t matter to human resources, that they didn\u2019t care about us, and feeling this sense of being worthless there,\u201d she added. \u201cI work there full-time, so all my bills, rent, car payments, food, all these other expenses are covered by this job. Having to be there so much, you just have to go home with this mentality of keeping your head down to keep going just to pay rent or feed yourself, and it\u2019s been really mentally exhausting to go in and just work every single day and it\u2019s super heartbreaking.\u201d
\nIn her lawsuit, Tan alleges a chef made frequent comments about her physical appearance, engaged in inappropriate touching and was made constantly uncomfortable by their behavior and commentary, from offering to bring in high heels for her to wear to physically comparing female banquet servers with another chef in a sexually explicit manner.
\nAfter human resources conducted an investigation, Tan had to continue working alongside the chef in the kitchen, where they escalated aggressive and predatory behavior toward her, including slamming pots and pans near her, finding reasons to brush up against her, and continuing to make sexually inappropriate comments within her earshot.
\nThe three banquet servers, Jalyn Ito, Reagan Coburn and Daniela Serna, began working at the Los Serranos Golf Club in 2021, at the ages of around 19 and 20 years old. The chef immediately began fixating on them, making suggestive comments and interrogating them about their romantic lives.
\n\u201cI felt extremely manipulated by my employer and my employer\u2019s response and it made me feel extremely anxious, ignored, angry and helpless,\u201d said Daniela Serna.
\nWhen all four women reported formal complaints to the club\u2019s general manager and human resources, they were initially reassured the complaints were being taken seriously and action would be taken. But that did not happen.
\n\u201cIt felt like a betrayal. I\u2019ve felt lost just walking into that place, remembering all the lies and memories has really hurt all of us. Every person wants to feel safe in their workplace, wants to feel heard and like they\u2019re being cared for, and unfortunately, we feel that in our experience that just wasn\u2019t the case here,\u201d said Ito. \u201cWe feel distressed walking to work, looking at the managers and just feeling let down that they didn\u2019t listen to us.\u201d
\nAll four women filed a charge with the California civil rights department in December 2022 and received an immediate right-to-sue letter. The women are being represented by Lauren Teukolsky of Teukolsky Law and Zoe Tucker of Unite Here Local 11, a union of service and hospitality workers that has led\u00a0previous lawsuits\u00a0over workplace sexual harassment against JC Resorts sites.
\n\u201cWe just want young women to be able to have power and feel heard, because we feel like we we weren\u2019t heard,\u201d said Coburn. \u201cWe want employers to know that they can\u2019t just get away with this type of stuff.\u201d
\nA spokesperson for JC Resorts said in an email: \u201cAt JC Resorts, we support our people and are invested in their workplace safety and success. JC Resorts has not received the specific lawsuits. However, we take very seriously all allegations of employee misconduct, we conduct thorough investigations and implement appropriate discipline based upon the available evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n