Educating restaurants about harassment

The Long Island chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association plans to consult with a well-known Garden City civil rights lawyer early next month over ways to educate restaurant staff and managers about sexual harassment in the workplace.
It’s all the result of the sexual harassment allegations that have been hurled against Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain, who is accused of improper behavior toward women when he was chief executive of the National Restaurant Association a decade ago. Cain has denied all of the allegations against him.
Brian Rosenberg, the chapter’s communications vice president, said the Cain matter has made restaurant people take notice of the issue anew, even though Cain was not a restaurant worker when the alleged incidents took place. Just the combination of the words “restaurant” and “sexual harassment” were enough to trigger concern, Rosenberg said.
Restaurants hire many young people who may not be fully familiar with laws governing workplaces, and turnover in eateries tends to be high.
Rosenberg said he has contacted the law firm Valli Kane & Vagnini to provide guidelines and lectures for about 500 restaurants that are members of the Island organization.
“The law firm needs to educate us, and we need to educate the law firm as to the challenges that go on in running these” restaurants, Rosenberg said, adding he plans to meet Dec. 6 with James Vagnini, a partner with the Garden City firm, which has been practicing civil rights law for 25 years.
“A lot of the waiter and waitress jobs are dictated by bosses,” Vagnini said. “There’s often no formal training or sensitivity training. There’s no guidelines.”
Mario Saccenti, the chapter’s executive vice president, said sexual harassment lawsuits are rare but the organization is trying to be “proactive.” In many cases such incidents go unreported and do not result in formal complaints, either because victims fear coming forward or because they settle cases privately.