Harassed us for years: S.I. eatery workers
PERKINS PROMOTES itself as a “family restaurant” — but behind the scenes a Staten Island outpost was anything but wholesome, according to a new lawsuit.
Seven women who worked at the Hylan Blvd. chain restaurant say in papers to be filed Monday that they were relentlessly sexually harassed by a longtime cook who was enabled by management. Humberto Cuenca, 51, who worked at the Perkins in Dongan Hills for over 20 years, created a work environment “of unmitigated sexual harassment, degradation, assault and abuse,” papers to be filed in Brooklyn Federal Court charge.
The women, who worked as hostesses or waitresses from 2001 through the present, said the harassment ranged from wildly inappropriate remarks to gross gestures with bananas and kielbasas to violent gropings and even one assault in the kitchen freezer.
“Every day that we worked there he was totally disgusting,” a former waitress, Raven Pedone, 29, told the Daily News. “When you went to management, she’d make it like it was our fault.”
The suit, which will seek class-action status, says that when several female staffers separately complained about Cuenca, the general manager, Jacinta Plutzer, gave them the same answer: They were “replaceable.” Cuenca, as a cook, was not. Plutzer denied having made that remark and said she fired Cuenca after first hearing an allegation against him.
“That’s just a stupid comment. Nobody is irreplaceable,” she said. “The first time I was aware anything happened, he was terminated.”
The lawsuit comes amid growing awareness of sexual harassment in the food service industry. While high-profile chefs like Mario Batali and Ken Friedman have received the most attention, sexual harassment is pervasive throughout the industry, according to a December report by the National Women’s Law Center.
The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also received more complaints in 2015 from women about harassment in the hotel and food industry than from any other sector.
The female staffers at Perkins said they reached a breaking point in May 2017 when Cuenca followed a waitress, Stevie Fontana, into the freezer while she looked for brownies.
“He really came after me,” Fontana, 23, said. “Then he just started touching me everywhere. And he licked his lips as he was doing it.”
After the assault, the powder from the white gloves Cuenca wore was all over her clothes, she said. Fontana’s brother then confronted Cuenca while he was on the job and threatened to contact police.
The ordeal prompted Plutzer to finally fire Cuenca, the general manager said. Cuenca could not be reached for comment.
“Perkins failed to protect its workers,” the women’s attorney Adam Slater said.
“I do a lot of these cases. This one is on another level.”
Perkins’ corporate office did not respond to a request for comment.