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It only took about a week. Jurors in the largest sex discrimination case ever to go to a jury found Novartis Pharmaceuticals guilty of discriminating against approximately 5,600 female sales representatives, reports Daily Finance. The areas of discrimination were: pay, promotion and pregnancy.
The New York Times stated that these abuses occurred between 2002 and 2007 in the company's U.S.-based Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation division, and added: "The $250 million in punitive damages is 2.6 percent of the company’s $9.5 billion 2009 revenue. The women had sought from $190 million to $285 million."
Image by americanidle via Flickr
The Wall Street Journal points out that no matter what company polices are, if they are not carried out by its managers, then the company is at risk of being sued:
Ironically, Novartis has been winning slots on Working Mother magazine’s "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers" list for more than a decade with such policies as discounts on child care and backup care and 10 weeks' paid maternity leave. Nevertheless, the jury found that pregnant women and new mothers, among others, were the targets of systematic discrimination and harassment.
The Journal, in fact, noted one instance in which "good" policy was directly connected to the discrimination case:
Another manager instructed fellow bosses to put special pressure on saleswomen before they left for maternity leave, because the company's policy was "a good deal" and risked making them "lazy," court papers show.
Human resources publications are talking about the verdict as well. Further infractions were cited by HR Morning:
* One manager's explanation of why he didn’t want to hire young women: "First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes flex time and a baby carriage"
* Another manager denied a maternity leave request from a woman who'd just adopted a baby, saying maternity leave was only for women who'd actually given birth, and
* Still another told a woman he didn't think she could do her job because "she was a single mother of three children who was going through a divorce."
A Novartis sales rep was raped by one of her clients, reported it, and was accused of being responsible for it herself, threatened and told to stop contacting HR. The disturbing court testimony can be found at Brandweek.
Although Novartis has announced that it will appeal this verdict, the very fact of its existence might have retail giants like Walmart watching very carefully. Walmart is next on the docket for an even larger suit (unless they settle) involving claims of discrimination against over 1.5 million women, as opposed to the 5,600 in the Novartis case.
~~ Contributing Editor, Mata H. also blogs right along at Time's Fool
