Awareness of rampant sexual harassment in the U.S. workplace continues to grow. Now restaurant and food service workers have become the latest to step into the #MeToo spotlight. More than 60 workers at IHOP and Applebee’s have filed sexual harassment lawsuits against their employers since 2010, reports a Vox investigation. The most recent lawsuit, representing 11 IHOP employees, was filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September 2017.
Between 2005 and 2015, more restaurant workers — about 5,000 — filed sexual harassment complaints with the EEOC than workers from any other industry. According to the Vox investigation, IHOP and Applebee’s — both of which are owned by DineEquity Inc. — are the only restaurant chains to be sued in federal court more than four times by employees for sexual harassment.
Restaurant workers are more likely than many to hold marginalized identities, which could make it harder to come forward with a complaint or risk a job to report harassment. When those workers face harassment, “it may be suggested that they are very replaceable, that because of their status in the workplace, no one will care about their claim or their claim won’t make a difference,” Laura Palumbo of the National Sexual Violence Research Center told Vox.