After four years of legal wrangling, Sodexo agreed in April 2005 to pay $80 million to settle a race-bias suit filed by thousands of black employees who charged that they were barred from promotions and segregated within the company.

The agreement, one of the biggest race-related job bias settlements in recent years, provided payouts to 10 lead plaintiffs and as many as 3,000 other black employees who worked at the company between 1998 and 2004 and also includes detailed provisions for increasing diversity at the company, including promotion incentives, monitoring and training.

One plaintiff, Ellen Early, said, "There was a limit as to how far African-American employees could go, and a limit as to what facilities African-American employees could go to."

Since then, however, there have been a number of other discrimination suits against Sodexo, some of which have involved the company paying nearly $1 million to plaintiffs and, in some cases, agreeing to operate under federal consent decrees.

Allegations of Discrimination

• In March 2007, following an in-depth evaluation of the hiring practices of a Sodexo subsidiary that provides services to remote sites such as drilling platforms, the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs determined that minorities applying for offshore utility, steward and night cook positions were unlawfully screened out. Sodexo agrees to pay $788,877 in back wages to settle findings that the company engaged in hiring discrimination against minorities at its facility in Harahan, LA. The Department of Labor found hiring discrimination against 4,465 rejected applicants, most of whom were African-American.


• In June 2008, Sodexho Laundry Services Inc. entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and plaintiff Genise Pierre after the EEOC alleged that the company discriminated against her on the basis of her national origin, race, and sex by failing to provide her with an alternate work assignment during her pregnancy. While the consent decree, which stays in effect for three years, does not include an admission of guilt by Sodexo, the company did agree to pay $80,000 (including $8,000 representing back wages and $72,000 representing compensatory and punitive damages) to settle the case. Pierre, who is of Haitian descent, alleges that she was forced to resign after her doctor gave her medical orders that she should not lift large amounts of weight during the remainder of her pregnancy. Sodexo allegedly refused to provide her with an alternative assignment despite the fact they had made such accommodations for other employees at the plant.

In August 2004, the EEOC filed suit against Sodexo alleging that Sodexo custodian Reynalda Sánchez faced sexual harassment by a male nurse employed by Agnew Development Center in San José, California, and that Sodexo retaliated against Sánchez when she brought the matter to Sodexo's attention. Finally, in January 2006, Sodexo agreed to pay $61,000 to settle the harassment case, which included the claim that Sodexo disciplined Ms. Sánchez for having reported the abuse. EEOC San Francisco District Director H. Joan Ehrlich stated, "We want to alert workers in the janitorial services industry that the EEOC will vigorously enforce their right to report and oppose discrimination and harassment in the workplace. Retaliation against those who voice a complaint is strictly prohibited, because it could intimidate other workers from asserting their rights."

• In May 2002, Sodexo agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit filed by Elizabeth Zelaya, a former Sodexo cleaner in Maryland who alleged she was fired because she was six-month's pregnant. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a complaint on her behalf.