News Article
Their Transformation- Is it the Real Thing? The Truth About the $192M Settlement From Coke’s CEO, Top Execs, Task-Force Members, Plaintiffs’ Attorney Diversity, Inc. January/ February 2007 Published: February 01, 2007 How did a company go from settling the largest discrimination lawsuit inU.S. history to reaching No. 3 on the 2006 Diversity Inc. Top 50 Companies for Diversity ® list? It wasn’t easy and it came with a hefty price tag… Coca-Cola agreed in 2000 to pay $192.5 million to settle claims made by current and former African-American employees that they were being unfairly treated and unfairly compensated. Beyond finances, Coca-Cola spent five years under court-ordered supervision by a task force to ensure that the company intrinsically changed its culture and treatment towards people of color. That supervision ended on Dec. 1, 2006… “The company always highlighted how much it embraced African Americans outside its company, its consumers and its community…but it didn’t with its employees,” says Cyrus Mehri, the attorney who represented Coca-Cola employees in the discrimination lawsuit… “We had a problem, we had a very significant morale problem as a company on a whole,” admits Neville Isdell…chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Co… The task force implemented and monitored Coca-Cola’s diversity performance in each of these categories… “The Nine Systems”…Performance Management, Staffing, Compensation, Diversity Education/ Strategy, EEO, Problem Resolution, Career Development, Succession Planning, Mentoring… People of Color at Coca-Cola, percent of total | | 1999 | 2006 | | Executives | 8.4% | 21.1% | | Managers | 16.0 | 25.5 | | Professionals | 21.9 | 33.6 | | TOTAL WORKFORCE | 26.0 | 34.9 | “…it is going to last…company clearly defines diversity as part of the business case. It’s not an add-on but an integral part of Coca-Cola’s future,” says task force chair Alexis Herman… |
