A Big Victory in the Fight against Gender Discrimination

There’s some great news on the front of gender discrimination, and after the U.S. Senate derailed the Paycheck Fairness Act, it’s more than welcome.

In case you haven’t heard, Novartis, a pharmaceutical corporation, was brought before federal court in New York by class representatives of approximately 5,600 female sales force employees. These women faced what has become typical discrimination concerning the three P’s: pay, promotion, and pregnancy. We’re celebrating this case for three reasons. First and foremost, they settled! The settlement provides for $22.5 million worth of changes to Novartis company policies and procedures, and more than 6,000 female current and former Novartis employees will receive monetary payments “for back-pay and compensatory damages in the amount of up to $152.5 million,” according to Sanford, Wittels, and Heisler LLP, the law firm representing the class of workers.

Second, the plaintiffs made history. To date, this is “the largest gender discrimination case to ever go to trial.”

Third, as part of the settlement, Novartis will be paying a cy pres award to AAUW for our work to advance equity for women and girls. This type of award is typically included in settlements to promote social change and to ensure that something is being done to combat wrongs like discrimination. In this case, AAUW is one of a few charitable organizations to receive awards to further our work to end gender discrimination.

When women are passed up for a promotion solely because of gender, we all feel it. When women are paid less than men, we all feel it. When women aren’t hired or are “let go” because they are pregnant, we all feel it. We feel it because it means discrimination is being tolerated. And that’s why we need to band together and fight against it, just like the women in the Novartis suit, and just like the supporters of AAUW. In doing so, we can ensure that future generations get paid and promoted based on education, experience, and performance, not gender and pregnancy status.

We’ve got some exciting plans for the cy pres award money — it’s going straight to AAUW’s continuing protection of women through our programs, research, and advocacy, including programming and advocacy for women’s fair pay. As seen in this case, wage discrimination remains a critical problem; women’s pay still lags behind that of men. On average, women make only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts, and they represent only a small percentage of those who hold top positions in business and academia. By some estimates women could lose between $500,000 and $1 million over a 40-year career. We plan to use the cy pres money for the work we do to prevent this kind of discrimination from continuing to happen.

By receiving this award, AAUW will be more likely to receive other cy pres awards in the future, and our organization joins others that are recognized and awarded for their work for social change, such as the powerful and outspoken anti-smoking Truth campaign. According to Protect the Truth, this public service campaign works to end smoking by youth through exposing the big tobacco companies’ marketing strategies. Tobacco companies contribute to a public education fund that was set up through a settlement in 1998.

The Novartis settlement is a huge achievement in the fight against gender discrimination in the workplace. Women are finally being heard and setting precedents to protect others who face gender discrimination. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court recently decided to hear a class action case against Wal-Mart, which may surpass the Novartis case. If the court affirms the class certification, the case will become the largest civil rights class action suit in the nation’s history.

The AAUW Legal Advocacy Fund announced last week that it will award monetary support to the case, Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Lead plaintiff Betty Dukes, a Wal-Mart employee, has alleged gender discrimination in pay and promotion policies and practices in Wal-Mart retail stores. The Supreme Court will decide whether a class of approximately 1.6 million female Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club employees can proceed as a class or if they will need to file individual lawsuits, a much more expensive and difficult endeavor. This case is especially important to us because of the potential to highlight the ongoing gender discrimination in employment that women face. A favorable decision in the Wal-Mart case could have a significant impact on employers with regard to discriminatory practices.

AAUW is proud of what the women in the class action suit against Novartis and their talented legal team have been able to accomplish. We are also proud to be recognized as a significant player in ending gender discrimination in this country. Stay tuned for AAUW’s continued involvement in this fight — you haven’t heard the last from us yet!