Oh Olive Garden.. I won't be eating at your establishment any longer. |
| Dean calls for the restaurant company to amend poor policies that employees “face from Darden management all over the country, like being discriminated against for being pregnant and being forced to work while sick.” |
Courtnee Dean, an Olive Garden employee of 10 years, has filed a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit against the restaurant’s parent company, Darden Restaurants, Inc., after she was terminated from her job shortly after informing her supervisor that she was expecting a child, according to a press release from Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC United).
According to the press release, Dean was “disciplined without cause and then terminated without any notice or explanation” from her longtime employer at a Philadelphia-area Olive Garden. A petition launched by Dean on Coworker.org calls for the restaurant to restore her employment as well as further discuss its views on pregnancy discrimination.
“I was shocked that after 10 years of employment I’d be treated so unfairly by Olive Garden,” Dean said in a statement. “It’s my hope that coming forward about my experience with pregnancy discrimination helps other women restaurant workers, especially at Olive Garden and other Darden restaurants, to have the courage to call out unfair treatment and seek support. My goal with all of this is just to make sure that Darden doesn’t get away with treating women like this, and that the company makes actual changes to prevent this from happening again.”
