Former Signature Room workers awarded $1.5 million in back pay, benefits

Former Signature Room employees will share $1.5 million in back pay and benefits after a federal judge ruled the operator of the famed restaurant and lounge closed in September without proper notice.

Unite Here Local 1, representing the 132 workers at the Signature Room and its lounge in the former John Hancock building, celebrated the win Thursday afternoon outside the former Hancock building at the southeast corner of North Michigan Avenue and East Delaware Place. Workers cut a cake decorated with a recreation of the judgment order in edible icing, alongside the words “Justice is served!”

“When the Signature Room closed last year, the union vowed to pursue every avenue to seek justice for these workers, and this judgment is an important step forward in that journey,” said Karen Kent, the president of Unite Here Local 1.

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Unite Here said in a lawsuit last October the employer failed to give 60 days notice of a closing or mass layoff, violating state law. The union filed the suit against Infusion Management Group, the restaurant operator.

The complaint alleged workers were notified of the closure in an email sent at 6 a.m. on Sept. 28, the day the restaurant and lounge closed its doors. The lawsuit asked that the workers receive pay, health insurance coverage and other benefits for 60 days under the state’s Workers Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, known as the WARN Act.

On March 14, U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber ordered Infusion Management Group to pay the former employees $1.5 million in back pay and benefits and $22,725 in attorney fees. The amount distributed to each employee depends on their wage and number of hours they would have worked in those 60 days.

The lawyers for Infusion Management Group were not immediately available for comment.

Unite Here said the overwhelming majority of the workers are people of color who worked as cooks, servers, bartenders and concierges. One-third of them had been working at the Signature Room for 15 years or more and eight celebrated their 30th work anniversary last summer.

Bob Sorenson, who worked at the Signature Room for over 25 years, said he was shocked when he received notice of the sudden closure. Finding employment afterward has “not been an easy path,” and he is still looking.

“Frankly, I’ve been hoping that something would open in such a beautiful iconic spot, that something would be open there, and we would go back to the place that we worked for decades,” he said.

Workers held a rally in December, calling for future tenants in the space to hire them back. They delivered a petition that garnered 1,000 signatures from those promising not to patronize the location unless the former workers are reemployed.

Ronald Gorny worked as a server at the Signature Room for 23 years, where he recalled meeting regulars from around the world. He said the closure turned his life “upside down.”

“It was very stressful, of course, not knowing what the future is going to be like for you, losing your health benefits,” Gorny said.

Like Sorenson, he said looking for employment has been a struggle. Gorny said he might relocate to Nashville to be with his family, instead.

“I’ll be 60 years old in a year,” Gorny said. “It’s a whole different story going out into the job market and looking for a job when you’re older, even though I have the experience.”

Gorny described the Signature Room employees as a “tight family.” People came together to hold the restaurant operator accountable, he said.

“This victory is huge. It means a lot to all of us,” Gorny said. “We’re getting justice for what should have been done correctly to begin with.”