Labor & Employment
EEOC Files Age Discrimination Suit Over Firing of Strip Club Waitress, 56
Posted May 13, 2009, 10:34 am CST
By Martha Neil
The federal agency in charge of enforcing anti-discrimination laws has taken up the cause of a Texas strip club waitress allegedly illegally fired due to her age.
Although 56-year-old Mary Bassi made a six-figure income, was popular with customers and sold a lot of liquor for Cover Girls, she was disparaged as "old," fired and replaced by younger servers, according to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit against the strip club's Houston-based parent company and an EEOC attorney overseeing the case.
“It doesn’t matter what industry you work in. You are still protected by anti-discrimination laws,” EEOC attorney Connie Wilhite tells the Houston Chronicle.
A lawyer for the parent company, AHD Houston, declines to comment on the litigation specifically, but says the company has strict anti-discrimination policies and intends to defend it aggressively.
Now 59, Bassi is reportedly working as a waitress for another strip club.
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