Civil Rights Group Joins Restaurant Opportunities Centers United to Demand that World's Largest Full-Service Restaurant Company Respond to Black Workers' Demands

ColorofChange has launched a campaign calling on Darden Restaurants, the owners and operators of Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Longhorn Steakhouse and the Capital Grille, to respond to a set of demands put forth by its workers in a recent lawsuit. The civil rights organization has joined forces with Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United), the group representing the workers in their lawsuit. In just three days, more than 45,000 ColorOfChange members have signed a petition calling on Darden to institute a promotions policy that allows Black workers to advance to high-paid positions at the Capital Grille, the only restaurant within the company where workers can earn a living wage.

"Black workers are discriminated against throughout the restaurant industry. They are routinely told that they don't have the right look for the waitstaff and bartender jobs at the fine dining restaurants that pay good wages," said ColorOfChange Executive Director Rashad Robinson. "Darden is facing a lawsuit that says the company is guilty of maintaining this pattern. Our members are concerned by reports that the company's hiring and promotions practices discriminate against Black job seekers. We're demanding that new policies be put in place."

In an email to its members late last week, ColorOfChange explained that there's no clear pipeline at Darden for workers to get from jobs at Red Lobster and Olive Garden to that higher-paid work at their high-end restaurant. The email goes on to explain that this discrimination is occurring in one of the few industries that's growing during our current recession. Restaurants account for one of every 12 private sector jobs, according to a recent ROC-United report on Blacks in the restaurant industry. But despite the growth in this sector, Black workers are routinely pushed into the industry's poverty-wage jobs.

"At a time when Black unemployment is nearly twice the national average and the private sector is being heralded as our greatest hope, Darden's pattern of relegating Black workers to the lowest-wage work is unconscionable," Robinson continued. More information about the campaign can be viewed at http://colorofchange.org/campaign/restaurants/original_email/.

With more than 800,000 members, ColorOfChange.org is the nation’s largest African-American online political organization.