When sexual harassment complaints against Herman Cain unfolded at the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s, the issue was all too familiar for the trade association.
In the wake of the televised 1991 Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings ? and the widely publicized sexual harassment charges leveled against him by Anita Hill ? American businesses had been hit by a wave of sexual harassment cases. And the restaurant industry, in particular, was hit especially hard.
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Industry officials saw it coming ? none other than Cain himself warned as long ago as 1991 that changes in federal law resulting from the hearings could cause problems for employers.
?This bill opens the door for opportunists who will use the legislation to make some money,? Cain, then CEO of Godfather?s Pizza, told Nation?s Restaurant News. ?I?m certainly for civil rights, but I don?t know if this bill is fair because of what we?ll have to spend to defend ourselves in unwarranted cases.?
In Cain?s own situation, sexual harassment allegations during his late 1990s tenure as NRA CEO led to at least two settlements with employees: one for approximately $45,000 and another in the mid-$30,000s.
Those settlements occurred at a time when the restaurant industry was struggling to deal with a surge in sexual harassment claims. According to statistics provided by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the number of claims in eating and drinking establishments spiked from 961 in fiscal 1992 to a high of 1,581 in in fiscal 1996. The number continued to stay above 1,200 per year until 2000.
Restaurant industry complaints made up a significant portion of the total sexual harassment claims: In fiscal 1997, for example, restaurants saw 1,481 complaints out of 15,889 ? 9.3 percent of the nationwide total.
Anita Hill?s charges brought a ?heightened awareness? to the issue of sexual harassment, said David Scher, a sexual-harassment lawyer at The Employment Law Group law firm.
When it came to litigation and bad publicity, Scher said, the restaurant industry ?faced some of the worst of it.?
Given the sheer size of the restaurant industry, a source familiar with the industry said, the number of cases in fiscal 1997 only represented about ?a tenth of a percent of the workforce at the time.? But the broader issue of sexual harassment was nonetheless a serious enough concern that the NRA embarked on an effort to educate both its staffers and members on the issue, which included moves to implement sexual harassment policies and training.
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