Rosie Catherine Grant,
Manager,
Hardee's #1512064,
401 **** Street S.W.,
Washington, D.C. 20024
July 16, 1995
E.E.O.C.#120-95-08090
Mr. Al Cornish*,
Human Resources Administrator,
Hardee's Food Systems,
1099 ****** Road,
Suite 200,
Linthicum, Md. 21090
Dear Mr. Cornish,
I am writing this note in reference to our discussion on Wednesday, July 12, 1995 at the meeting you requested to discuss issues raised in my letter to Mr. Robert A***** dated April 4, 1995:
I have reviewed the memo Mr. Kramer* sent you on May 25, 1995 and have identified twenty-eight prevarications in it, all of them easily documented. I have enclosed a copy of his memo with each lie numbered.
(Please advise Mr. Kramer of the fact that lies written down do not make convincing arguments, they merely make documented lies.)
Since you chose to walk out of the meeting before I had a chance to point out how many times you were lied to in Kramer's memo, I won't burden you with the nine page analysis of his memo which I have prepared; it will be presented in the proper forum.
I did point out in our meeting the falsehoods in lie #L4; and your reaction indicated that you may not have been given the facts. On the odd chance that you are a Man of Integrity who has been misled about the investigation by Mr. Kramer or others, let me elaborate on just that one lie.
L4 states "He was transferred out of the restaurant at this time", referring to General Manager Luis Moreno*, the ex-mental patient who crawled under my desk and bit me on the leg, among other things. This statement infers that Moreno was removed "at this time", meaning at the time when the complaint was made.
I notified the company of Moreno's harassment on Thursday, November 17, 1994, Moreno was suspended on Friday, November 18th and after their "investigation", Dave Roach and Hakan Yavalar reinstated Moreno as my boss on Tuesday, November 22nd.
My abuser was not "transferred out of the restaurant at this time" as Kramer states in the memo, he worked as my supervisor until December 16th, almost one month later. He also was not removed because of my complaint, but because of another incident about which you probably have not been informed.
On December 11, 1994 I reported to work to find the parking lot of the Bethesda 2 strewn with hundreds of leaflets from a veteran's group urging a boycott of Hardee's and insulting Moreno because of his treatment of a legless veteran in a wheelchair. It included a cartoon of Moreno kicking a man in a wheelchair down the steps of the restaurant.
Bethesda 2 had no handicapped access; as I'm sure you are aware this is a violation of federal law. A group of handicapped veterans lives nearby, they couldn't roll their wheelchairs up six steps to get into the store; and would ask employees to bring food outside to them.
On one occasion last fall, I saw Moreno engaged in an argument with a legless veteran in a wheel chair, the man said it took too long for Moreno to serve him. This argument degenerated into a food fight, with both Moreno and the disabled man throwing food at each other in the parking lot.
The boycott flyer says that Moreno had this same veteran arrested, but I cannot confirm that. I have been told that these flyers were distributed to many Hardee's restaurants and throughout the neighborhood around Bethesda 2.
It was only after this incident that Moreno was removed as my supervisor; his "special friend" Martin Harrell told me that Moreno had been ordered to "face me" by staying in the store. This was part of Harrell's now famous "Let bygones be bygones" speech to me in the Hot Shoppes restaurant on December 2, 1994, during which he directly threatened to terminate me (see footnote).
The issues in my letter of 4-4-95 that Kramer fails to address in his memo are also instructive:
(1) Roach's use of Moreno to translate statements about himself from sixteen non-English speaking Hispanic witnesses
(2) Roach, Yavalar and Harrell returning my abuser to the store as my supervisor,
(3) My placement with black female GM's to mask Hardee's retaliation against me
(4) Moreno's extortion of money from a retarded employee (at least you had the good sense to pay the boy his money back).
At our meeting on 7-12-95, we all got a chance to hear Mr. Kramer lie in person, when he said that he had personally investigated Ms. Sheen's* deliberate shortchanging of eleven employees pay, and that he had talked to Mohamed S***** twice about the matter (refer to #L20 and #L21).
When I pointed out that both Mohamed and Juan R***** say that no one has ever talked to them about their pay being shortchanged, we all saw Mr. Kramer begin to backpedal, stating "that may be an issue that is not resolved" and "that may need to be looked at".
This is a prime example of the level of integrity and quality of investigation that was involved in Hardee's handling of my original sexual harassment complaint against Moreno.
At the meeting you expressed concern that I not talk to anyone about being abused because it might "slander and ruin the reputation" of my abuser. You said that this "created liability for the company" and for me, intimating that he might sue Hardee's.
That is a very enlightening statement, because perhaps it finally explains to me why my company has treated me so shabbily.
I feel sorry for you. Someone earning a six figure salary as a "Human Resources" executive, a supposed expert in human relations, should have less trouble than you appear to have relating to humans (or at least human victims).
I have difficulty sharing your overwhelming concern for protecting the reputations of sexual abusers.
I sat in the meeting Wednesday patiently listening to you for more than fifty minutes while you and Kramer explained his imaginative justification of Hardee's actions. When both of you stormed out of the meeting saying "We are wasting each other's time!" without hearing my side, I was very disappointed.
You have stated repeatedly that you are not waging a campaign of retaliation against me for filing the complaint; but somehow in the two days after you walked out of our meeting I received two more written "Discussion Records" and my first ever Written Notice of Disciplinary Action from my general manager and district manager.
Within those same two days, I was told by your managers to pay out of my pocket two different cash shortages in banks and drawers that had been "even" when I counted them minutes before.
How could any reasonable person possibly conclude that Hardee's is retaliating against me? Someone with your heralded reputation for integrity and honesty should be able to easily explain the following:
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I repeat; How could any reasonable person conclude that Hardee's is retaliating against me? Perhaps you could commission Mr. Kramer to concoct an entertaining response.
As always, I will continue to shine my little light on this matter until the truth is clear to everyone. I won't bother you again.
Sincerely,
Rosie C. Grant
Manager, Hardee's #1512064
1 Martin Harrell: "If you go outside the company and
tell anyone about this, I will terminate you!" (12-2-94),
Hakan Yavalar: "I will fire all of you" (1-25-95), Doug
Kramer: "You could have been terminated for not filling out
that form"(7-12-95), Al Cornish: "But you did go outside
the company . . . we haven't terminated you yet" (7-12-95),
Jeffrey Wells: "I could have had you terminated for not completing
that form" (7-14-95)
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