Compliance August 14, 2003

Supercuts Coifs Race Discrimination Settlement

August 14, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - A national hair salon chain has agreed to pay $3.5 million to settle race discrimination charges that a manager was fired for refusing a plan to slash the number of African Americans employees.
Reported by

>The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Supercuts agreed to the voluntary settlement as part of the agency’s conciliation process.

>The EEOC said the agreement takes care of charges by former Supercuts Regional Manager Richard Quick that Quick was fired for not going along with a supervisor’s demand to “balance the platform” by reducing the company’s African American workforce and separate allegations that Supercuts didn’t properly hire and promote African Americans and fired them because of their race. At the time he was fired from Supercuts, Quick was responsible for approximately 76 stores in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Puerto Rico

“The extensive injunctive relief set in place by the agreement will go a long way towards ensuring that African American applicants and employees of Supercuts will be afforded the freedom to compete and advance in the workplace on a level playing field without artificial barriers,” said EEOC Miami Deputy Director Hollis Larkins in a statement.

>In addition to the monetary payout, Supercuts will:

  • pay the costs of a claims administrator to coordinate the claims distribution process
  • post a quarter-page advertisement in several newspapers in the Northeast regarding the discrimination claims
  • implement several preventive measures including the production of a one-hour training video to be shown to approximately 750 store managers on an annual basis during the three-year duration of the conciliation agreement.

>The agreement will provide relief to African Americans meeting certain qualifying criteria who applied to, were terminated from, or denied promotions by Supercuts Stores in its Eastern Region between November 1996 and December 2001. The Eastern Region covers Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin and Puerto Rico.

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