Three women who challenged the discrimination in the male dominated finanacial institutions on Wall Street, in particular, Smith Barney, one of the industry's largest brokerages, have finally won a settlement
that will compensate thousands of underpaid female employees and marks another step in the fight against sexism, bullying and unequal pay on Wall Street.
Renee Fassbender Amochaev, Deborah Orlando and Kathryn Varner tried to resolve this issue long before the desperate action of filing a law suit in 2005. When they first complained about the fact that
they were being fobbed off with the least lucrative client work, while the men shared the richest clients among themselves, they were initially ignored, then ridiculed - and ultimately forced out.
It seems that past lessons were not learned well by the financial giant:
Smith Barney had already promised to install anti-discrimination policies as part of an earlier legal settlement in 1998. In that case, women at a New York branch of the business had alleged a macho culture ruled over by a bullying boss who cultivated a fraternity house environment. Drinking parties were held regularly for mainly male brokers, where they drank bloody marys from a barrel and subjected female colleagues to lewd pranks. The revelations shamed Wall Street and analysts believe Citigroup, Smith Barney's parent company, had to pay out more than $100m in damages that time, with millions more in "diversity training" for its managers.
Although there have been some improvements in the atmosphere of the offices, Kelly Dermody, the trio's lawyer, had these words yesterday
"I wish I could say that we are coming to the end of the era of sex discrimination lawsuits, but there are major institutional problems that remain on Wall Street. There is a lot less gross sexual harassment than 10 years ago but the dollars-and-cents issue of pay and promotion, and other barriers to women, they still remain."
What made Citigroup settle? It always is a money issue and bad publicity is bad for business:
by this year 2,500 current and former employees had swung behind the class action and were demanding redress for discrimination against them. With that momentum, Citigroup decided to stop fighting.
Initially Citigroup claimed the women got "all that they were worth" but now they seem to recognize the problem
As part of the settlement, Smith Barney is to appoint a diversity monitor and an industrial psychologist charged with re-educating the "good old boys".
Often to get resolution to issues people have to be brave and step up to challenge injustice in the work place. This is especially hard for women but I am heartened to see these cases come forward and see the women winning. It may mean that women in other workplaces get treated more fairly or that they get the courage to challenge the status quo.
