Women in Queens supermarkets pigeonholed, EEOC suit claims

Ever notice how many women are cashiers at grocery stores, and how few work in any other departments, especially the meat counter, bakery, and behind the management desk? That's what female workers at Queens, New York supermarkets Key Food and Food Dynasty noticed; and they began to find the practices suspicious in 2006 when a woman applied for a position at a Food Dynasty in the Ridgewood neighborhood in Queens.

Nataliya Goines would have been happy to work as a cashier, but was told there were no positions available, so she asked to be considered for a job as a stocker. "We don't hire women as stockers," was the response. She, like all the other female applicants over the past 20 years, would only be considered for the cashier position. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began investigating, determining that 90% of cashiers were women, and almost no women were hired in grocery, bakery, produce, dairy or frozen departments. Yesterday, the EEOC filed a sex discrimination suit in Brooklyn Federal Court.