Panda Express, a popular restaurant chain with more than 1,800 locations nationwide, recently came under fire for discrimination in their hiring and documentary practices. In an effort to resolve the allegations, the U.S. Justice Department has reached a $600,000 agreement with the operator of Panda Express. Those involved in the agreement hope that it will resolve the “investigation into whether Panda Restaurant Group Inc. discriminated against non-U.S. citizens in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act when reverifying their permission to work.”
Panda Express, a popular restaurant chain with more than 1,800 locations nationwide, recently came under fire for discrimination in their hiring and documentary practices. In an effort to resolve the allegations, the U.S. Justice Department has reached a $600,000 agreement with the operator of Panda Express. Those involved in the agreement hope that it will resolve the “investigation into whether Panda Restaurant Group Inc. discriminated against non-U.S. citizens in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act when reverifying their permission to work.”
While it’s great to see a company making an effort to remedy a discrimination problem, one can’t help but wonder what the funds will be used for. So far, reports indicate that part of the settlement will require Panda Express to “pay a $400,000 civil penalty and establish a $200,000 back pay fund to compensate workers who lost wages due to the company’s practices.” In addition, the company will have to “train human resources workers on anti-discrimination requirements and will be subject to monitoring and reporting requirements, according to a news release.”
But what happened that led to the discrimination allegations in the first place? Well, according to court documents, “an investigation found that Panda Express “unnecessarily” required lawful permanent resident workers to re-establish their work authorization when their permanent resident cards expired but did not make similar requests of U.S. citizen workers when their documents expired.”
Additionally, Panda Express “also routinely required other non-U.S. citizen workers to produce immigration documents to reverify their ongoing work authorization although they had already provided sufficient documentation.” The problem with requiring this is that the law actually “prohibits such document requests when they’re based on an employee’s citizenship status or national origin,” according to court documents.
In response to the allegations of discrimination, Thien Ho, director of corporate communications at Panda Express, said in a recent statement:
“While we continue to believe that we did not discriminate, either in intent or in practice, we settled this matter with the Department of Justice in order to focus our time and resources on our commitment to supporting our associates. Even before this settlement, we had put in place additional systems and training to address our employee authorization verification processes.”
No one deserves to be discriminated against, especially not in the workplace. Fortunately for the “work-authorized, non-U.S. citizens who lost work at Panda Express between May 31, 2014, and June 28, 2017” because of the discriminatory documentary practices of Panda Express’ human resources department, the recent agreement between the company and the Justice Department will result in many being eligible for back pay for wages they would have earned.
Anyone seeking more information about the agreement or the situation as a whole can email IER.PEclaims@usdoj.gov.
Sources:
Panda Express settles federal worker discrimination lawsuit
Panda Express settles immigrant worker discrimination suit brought by Justice Department
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