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Enron Mail |
Yes, thanks. I was aware of that joyous news. I am going to see if I can
get a copy of the petition to review all the allegations in detail. Thanks. Michelle Enron North America Corp. From: Felecia Acevedo @ ENRON 10/27/2000 08:46 AM To: Michelle Cash/HOU/ECT@ECT, Brian Schaffer/Corp/Enron@ENRON cc: Subject: Microsoft Lawsuit You've probably seen this already, but just in case..... also, their performance review process sounds a lot like ours! No. 200 Monday, October 16, 2000 Page A-3 ISSN 1522-5968 News Discrimination Suit Filed by Microsoft Salaried Employee Alleges Discrimination Based on Race, Sex SEATTLE--A suit has been filed against Microsoft Corp. alleging the company maintains a systemic and pervasive practice of discriminating against African American and female salaried employees, affecting pay rates and promotion opportunities (Donaldson v. Microsoft Corp., W.D. Wash., No. C00-1684P, 10/4/00). Such discrimination at the company "is the standard operating procedure," the lawsuit said. The suit filed Oct. 4 in federal court in Seattle seeks back pay, other job benefits, and compensatory and punitive damages for a proposed class of about 400 African American employees and some 4,500 female employees. Mark Murray, company spokesman, said Microsoft does not tolerate discrimination of any kind. "We take these kinds of issues very seriously," Murray said regarding the lawsuit. The company has an "active diversity policy" and seeks to recruit and promote minorities and women, Murray told BNA Oct. 12. He said he could not comment on any specific aspects of the lawsuit. The class would include all current and former female salaried employees who worked for Microsoft beginning Feb. 23, 1999, and all current and former African American salaried employees who worked at the company beginning Oct. 4, 1998. Microsoft employs some 18,000 workers in the U.S. the complaint said. About 2.5 percent to 3 percent are African American and about 26 percent are women. Murray said the company has about 27,250 employees in the U.S., including 21,767 in Western Washington. In the U.S., 26.3 percent of Microsoft employees are women and 22.2 percent minorities, he said. The lawsuit was filed by Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll of Seattle. The named plaintiff, Monique Donaldson, sued on behalf of herself and a class of all similarly situated African American and similarly situated female salaried employees at Microsoft. "African American and female salaried employees of Microsoft are routinely subjected to a pattern and practice of race and sex discrimination affecting the terms and conditions of their employment" at the company, the complaint said. The violations--of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and Civil Rights Act of 1871--are "systemic in nature, and constitute a pattern and practice of conduct which permeates Microsoft's operations," the lawsuit maintains. 'Excessive Subjectivity' Alleged The complaint said the company allows "excessive subjectivity" in decisions involving promotions and compensation. Microsoft has retaliated against employees in the class who complained "either internally or externally about Microsoft's treatment of African American and female employees by giving unjustified lowered performance evaluations and constructively terminating them." The lawsuit said the company "uses an excessively subjective evaluation system" that allows managers "who are predominantly white males, to rate employees based upon their own biases rather than based upon merit." Performance evaluations, for instance, use a five-point scale, but scores of five, the highest number, are not awarded. Within any organization of the company, only a certain number of employees are allowed to receive each score, which can range from 2.5 to 4.5, the lawsuit said. "Thus, no matter how good or bad the actual performance of employees a certain number of them must still receive the lower scores." Any employee with a 2.5 score is placed on a "personal improvement plan" or asked to resign, the complaint said. "Stack rankings" are used to rank employees in the same job category and organizational unit from best to worst, the complaint said. Employees can be ranked higher under the stack ranking than others who receive numerically higher performance evaluations, the lawsuit said. "Obtaining higher stack rankings is often governed by an employees' personal popularity with other managers" because the rankings mix employees working for different managers. In addition to allowing discrimination in performance appraisals, the company also has a pattern of paying African American and female employees salaries "substantially lower" than those paid white males doing similar work, with the same or lesser skills, and with similar or lesser experience, the lawsuit said. Furthermore, "excessively subjective decisionmaking criteria" are applied in promotions, which favor white males with fewer qualifications than African Americans and female employees. By Nan Netherton Copyright , 2000 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.
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