Velazquez's Mexican Restaurants and Cantinas
uan Velazquez has managed his chain of Mexican Restaurants and Cantinas for many years without any trouble with the EEOC. (His restaurants specialize in "authentic" Mexican food and are located throughout Colorado and in Atlanta, Georgia. They also provide catering services.)
Velazquez has never taken formal steps to avoid or investigate the possibility of making EOO-type mistakes even though a Metro State professor had warned him to be more careful about how applicants were recruited and screened. Velazquez told the professor: "Our HR processes must be OK because we've never heard any complaints" (from job applicants or employees).
Whenever Velazquez needed a new employee, he simply asked his current employees (99% of whom were Hispanic-Americans) if they had any friends and relatives who were looking for jobs. Sometimes he also asked the local state employment office to list his open jobs and send over some qualified candidates. His catering supervisor and wait staff supervisor (both Spanish-speaking Hispanic-Americans) interviewed applicants and hired those candidates they found acceptable.
According to Velazquez, no selection tests (such as personality or aptitude tests and drug tests) or other background or reference checks were done to determine the candidates' qualifications. Velazquez said they did not need to do any of these things because "most of these applicants are relatives and friends of my current employees and our employees know the type of employees we need to be successful."
Last week, Velazquez was served with a formal notice from the Colorado Equal Rights Commission. According to the notice, 20 Black (African-American) applicants were sent to Velazquez's firm from the Colorado state employment office during the previous year. Although the employment office strives to send job candidates who meet the job requirements, none of these seemingly qualified applicants had received a job offer from the restaurant. Furthermore, Velazquez's supervisors never returned to the Colorado employment office the required follow-up cards. The cards are used by the employment office to verify that the applicants had been interviewed. Velazquez was starting to wonder if the professor was right about his recruiting and hiring processes being too informal and haphazard.
We will discuss the following during in-class groups and class discussion.
Category
(Census year)Colorado
(2007)Denver
(2000)Arizona
(2007)Tucson
(2000)White (Non-Hispanic) 71.3%
59.1%
Hispanic or Latino Origin 19.9%
34.7%
29.6%
35.7%
Black (African-American) 4.2%
10.6%
4.0%
4.3%
American Indian & Alaska Native 1.2%
1.3%
4.7%
2.3%
Questions for class discussion (NOT a written assignment):
1. Using information and inferences made from the case, explain what hypothesized conditions at Velazquez's Mexican Restaurants & Cantinas might indicate Adverse Impact in a., c., & d. below. (p.49+).
a. Disparate Rejection Rates
b. Restricted Policy or Practice (answer in #2)
c. Population Comparisons (see census data above)
d. McDonnell-Douglas Test
2. The b. in #1 above addresses discriminatory policies & practices. Explain the discriminatory recruiting practices noted on pages 52-4 appear to be committed by Velazquez's Mexican Restaurants and Cantinas?
3. Is not returning the required follow-up cards to the Colorado employment office (as noted above) an example of discriminatory practices or just poor management practice? Why?
4. Explain how Juan Velazquez might defend his company against allegations of discriminatory practices by applying both defenses [bona fide occupational qualifications (BFOQ) & business necessity (p. 50-1)].
