Bay Area Grocery Chain Settles Job Bias Case

The federal government said Thursday a San Francisco Bay Area grocery chain agreed to settle a discrimination case by paying $1.3 million to women and minorities denied jobs and promotions. The settlement with Nob Hill Foods also includes goals of hiring about 175 women and minorities and promoting 70 to 75 women in the next three-plus years, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission officials said. Many of Nob Hill’s lower-level employees are women, but “when they looked around, they didn’t see any women managers,” said Susan McDuffie, director of the commission’s San Francisco district office. She said promotional openings were not posted, but there was evidence of “men being tapped on the shoulder and told, ‘Hey, do you want this promotion? It’s yours.”’ Eighty-three percent of the company’s managers are men, she said. The Raley’s supermarket chain announced an agreement last month to buy Nob Hill Foods, which has 27 stores and employs about 2,600 people and lists annual revenues of nearly $400 million.