COCA-COLA SETTLES RACIAL BIAS CASE http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/17/business/coca-cola-settles-racial-bias-case.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm By GREG WINTER
Published: November 17, 2000
In the largest settlement ever in a racial discrimination case, the Coca-Cola Company agreed yesterday to pay more than $156 million to resolve a federal lawsuit brought by black employees.
The settlement also mandates that the company make sweeping changes, costing an additional $36 million, and grants broad monitoring powers to a panel of outsiders -- an unusual concession in employment discrimination cases.
The lawsuit, filed in April 1999, accused Coke of erecting a corporate hierarchy in which black employees were clustered at the bottom of the pay scale, averaging $26,000 a year less than white workers. As redress, the settlement provides as many as 2,000 current and former black salaried employees with an average of $40,000 in cash, while the four plaintiffs whose names are on the lawsuit will receive up to $300,000 apiece.
''There's going to be fundamental change at the Coca-Cola Company,'' said Kimberly Gray Orton, a plaintiff who worked for Coca-Cola for 13 years and who says that she made less than the white workers she supervised. ''A lot like a rock in a pond, there are going to be ripples.''
Perhaps more surprising than its size, the settlement gives an outside panel, appointed by Coke and the plaintiffs' lawyers, limited authority to revise company personnel policy, a capitulation even optimistic watchers of the case did not expect the settlement to yield.
Serving as a watchdog for at least four years, with access to the company's employment records, the panel is charged with ensuring that Coke's record of paying and promoting all minority workers and women improves. Unless granted an exception by a judge, the company must adopt the suggestions.
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