Sodexho settles suit for millions

After Sodexho Inc., Pitt’s dining services provider, settled a discrimination lawsuit with… After Sodexho Inc., Pitt’s dining services provider, settled a discrimination lawsuit with thousands of black employees for $80 million, a representative of the company defended the company’s reputation.

“We do not move managers based on race,” spokeswoman Leslie Aun said, in response to the allegations, that Sodexho transferred managers to different locations in an attempt to avoid promotions.

Pitt has had Sodexho employees working in its eateries since 1997, but none of the plaintiffs in the suit were affiliated with the University.

Pitt Director of Affirmative Action William Savage said that no past discriminatory disputes have come to his office. When asked, he could not offer any data on the percentage of black managers working for Sodexho at Pitt.

The class action suit, filed by 10 employees, applied to thousands of black managers who argued they were continually overlooked and denied promotions despite being qualified.

Aun said the company is on par with the national average when it comes to minority employment.

“Twelve percent of the managers in our company are black, and the African-American population in America is roughly 12 percent for the census,” Aun said. “Sodexho exceeds the labor pool for African-American managers.”

About 25 percent of the company’s entire workforce is black. Sodexho employs 15,532 managers, of which 1,921 are black, but only 2 percent of the upper management is black.

The thousands of managers who fall under the class action suit may receive as much as $60,000 each, while the 10 named plaintiffs who originally filed the case in 2001 could receive an additional $120,000 each.

In the settlement, Sodexho agreed to more training and a more structured hiring process for its 106,000 employees throughout the country.

Aun refused to comment on possible discrimination at Pitt.

“You really have to look at the whole company nationwide for a fair and accurate picture,” Aun said.