Coca-Cola Selects Panel in Race-Bias Settlement

Coca-Cola Co. announced the six members of a task force to oversee hiring and promotion practices as part of the $192.5-million settlement of a race-bias lawsuit against the world’s largest soft drink company.

In the lawsuit, about 2,200 minority employees of Coca-Cola claimed white workers got better raises and promotions.

U.S. District Judge Richard Story must approve the panel as part of the settlement agreement, Coca-Cola said. Also through the settlement, the employees who sued will receive 120,000 shares of common stock as additional payment for the years 1996 through 1999. The rest of the settlement funds, $113 million, will go toward financial damages for the plaintiffs and attorneys’ fees. Story approved the settlement June 7.

Proposed members of the task force are: M. Anthony Burns, chairman of Ryder System Inc.; Gilbert F. Casellas, chief executive and president of Q-LINX Inc.; lawyer Edmund D. Cooke Jr., a partner in Winston & Strawn; and Georgia State University law professor Marjorie Fine Knowles.

Also named were Bill Lann Lee, former assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice; and Rene Redwood, former executive director of the Glass Ceiling Commission. Former Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman was named the task force’s chairwoman in March.

Atlanta-based Coca-Cola rose 60 cents to $45.60 on the New York Stock Exchange.