Jessup food firm to settle job bias probe

Smelkinson Sysco Food Services, a Jessup food service company, will hire six women to fill warehouse jobs in order to resolve a discrimination investigation by federal contract compliance regulators, the Department of Labor said yesterday.

Smelkinson, a unit of Houston-based Sysco Corp., agreed to the resolution after a review of the company's 1994 hiring practices.

The company was covered by government contracting regulations because it supplies food to military bases, said Jacqueline Bell, district director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

Bell said the company rejected 37 women who applied for entry-level jobs during 1994. Given the women's qualifications and the percentage of male applicants who got jobs, Bell said the company should have hired six women if it had not been discriminating -- the same number it agreed to hire under the settlement.

The six women hired from among the 1994 applicants will get the seniority they would have received had they been hired in 1994.

The company continued to deny that it broke any laws in filling the $10.50-an-hour jobs.

Pub Date: 5/07/96