It’s payday for a group of Haitian dishwashers who were fired from the SLS South Beach hotel a few years back after they reported abusive conditions.
Back in April 2014, the dishwashers reported to human resources that they were banned from speaking Creole while Hispanic workers were allowed to speak Spanish freely and that they were asked to lug heavy items up the hotel’s 13 floors by stairs. After their complaints were made, the 17 employees were fired and replaced the same day by a staff entirely made up of white and Hispanic employees, the Miami Herald reports.
This was all laid out in a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commision on behalf of the employees. The lawsuit also revealed that when the Haitian workers asked managers to fix the hotel’s broken service elevator, one boss stated, “Let those slaves do the work.” The hotel has now agreed to pay $2.5 million to those 17 Haitian employees in a settlement reached in the suit.
As part of the settlement, the hotel will be required to run mandatory anti-discrimination training for all chefs, managers and employees working at the hotel’s restaurants. The hotel chain denies all accusations made in the suit but officials said “that settlements are favored over continued, costly and uncertain litigation.”
TSR STAFF: Christina C! @cdelafresh
