Down by the freezer
Where the kitchen staff is harassed
He said, “Hey hon, why don’t ya give me some
Or this paycheck is your last.’‘
That’s what 30 New Haven-based activists sang as they invaded North Haven’s Outback Steakhouse to protest the the termination of three employees there. Click on the play arrow to watch.
Three employees, who were not at the Friday evening demonstration, left their jobs at the Steakhouse after filing sexual harassment complaints with local management, according to Unidad Latina en Accion organizer Megan Fountain. After being terminated, the three sent complaints to the corporate ownership in Tampa, Florida, Fountain said.
“Three people came to [Unidad Latina en Accion] because they were forced to leave Outback. Two of them suffered repeated sexual harassment,” Fountain said. “They wanted to enlist the support of the immigrants rights movement and the women’s rights movement, because they know that we document and challenge abuses in the workplace.”
Fountain referred specifics of the case to the three employee’s attorney, Peter Goselin of the National Lawyers Guild, who did not return calls over the weekend. She did say that the man accused of sexual harassment is still employed at Outback.
The three employees come from Ecuador and Colombia, according to Fountain. One of the workers claims she was fired for resisting advances; the second said her hours were reduced. The third worker, boyfriend of one of the allegedly harassed workers, quit because he said he didn’t feel comfortable in the workplace.
Roy Spagnola, the manager on-duty Friday night, would not give specific details of the case either. When asked if he knew why the picketers where there, Spagnola said “Someone did have a grievance of some sort.”
With picketers standing on a snowy island around the entrance of the parking lot, ULA organizers Fatima Rojas and Megan Fountain walked inside to speak to the manager. Spagnola gave Rojas and Fountain a business card for Joe Kano, Outback’s public relations officer in Tampa, Florida. Rojas wrote the Unidad Latina en Accion hotline number of the back of the business card and handed it to Spagnola. Spagnola, who is not the manager accused in the case, is pictured here.
“You tell him to call us,” she said.
(The Tampa p.r. office had not returned a call as this story was published.)
Ten minutes later — as the group handed out flyers to people entering the restaurant, with drivers stopping to ask what was going on, then turning around and leaving — a police car crept into the parking lot.
“All right, party over,” said North Haven Officer Val Queiroga (pictured). “You can’t be on this island, it’s private property.”
The picket moved to the sidewalk in front of the main entrance to Big Y and Outback Steakhouse, to comply with Queiroga’s orders.
When the demonstrators were packing it in, they sang their Christmas carol about sexual harassment, marched back onto the parking lot, flung open the doors, and marched into Outback’s waiting area. After being shooed out by a bus boy, they chanted “We’ll be back,” and headed to their cars. They didn’t make it far.
North Haven police detained the people involved, blocking the Outback exit and individual cars as they copied information from drivers licenses, student IDs, and Elm City Resident Cards.
Fatima Rojas was issued a $195 ticket by the North Haven Police Department.