A Verdict to Shatter the Glass
Janella Sue Martin probably took cold comfort from the U.S. Labor Department’s official finding over the summer that yes, a “glass ceiling” does exist in much of corporate America, blocking the promotion of well-qualified women and minorities. Martin knew that the glass ceiling was firmly in place at Texaco Refining & Marketing Inc. After 18 years with the oil company, most recently as a credit supervisor in the Los Angeles office, her head was bumping hard against the glass.
Four times, management positions opened for which she was qualified. But four times, despite consistently excellent job evaluations, Martin was passed over for a man. In one instance, she applied for a slot as a credit manager for a region that included parts of Africa and Latin America. When asked why she was denied this promotion, she was blunt ly told that the job involved travel to places where she would likely be raped or kidnaped.
But in recent weeks Martin is smiling. A Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded her $17.6 million in compensatory and punitive damages for the sex discrimination claim she filed against Texaco in 1986.
Legal experts said that this award is the largest ever granted to an individual in a sex discrimination case; often, such large awards are reduced or negotiated down in lieu of an appeal. The award was meant to punish Texaco, jurors said, and make an example of the company. Alas, Martin’s experience at Texaco was, not atypical. Between 1983 and 1988, Texaco did not promote a single female employee into middle or upper management. And of 3,000 employees in the management pay grades to which Martin sought promotion--out of Texaco’s work force at the time of 54,000--only four were women.
Even sadder, Texaco’s dismal record is still not uncommon. Martin’s verdict comes just months after a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled that a woman lawyer passed over for partner in favor of several less-qualified men was entitled to damages calculated on a partner’s salary rather than the lower pay of the associate level.
Last year, a federal appeals court directed a major accounting firm to promote to partner a woman unjustly passed over. And in June, an Iowa jury awarded more than $6 million in damages to a female insurance broker after finding she had been underpaid compared to her male colleagues and unfairly passed over for promotion.
In awarding its record verdict, the jury in the Martin case--underscoring other recent verdicts and judgments--has issued a clarion call to all employers: Sex discrimination is unfair, illegal and intolerable.
