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- <text id=89TT0418>
- <title>
- Feb. 13, 1989: Business Notes:Litigation
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Feb. 13, 1989 James Baker:The Velvet Hammer
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 63
- Business Notes
- LITIGATION
- Closing a Color Gap
- </hdr><body>
- <p> The battle began as a simple lawsuit filed by one black
- employee who had been passed over for a promotion at General
- Motors. But by the time GM agreed to a settlement last week, the
- complaint had grown into a class-action suit representing some
- 10,000 workers, mostly clerical and managerial, who will reap
- millions of dollars in pay adjustments. The accusation: that
- GM's system for judging worker performance discriminated against
- blacks. "Evaluators were allowed to indulge their biases,
- conscious or unconscious," said Dennis James, lawyer for the
- plaintiffs.
- </p>
- <p> While admitting no guilt, GM has agreed to pay more than $3
- million in damages to 3,800 past and present employees, along
- with $13 million in pay raises for black workers whose salaries
- are most out of line with those of their white counterparts.
- The automaker has promised that future raises and promotions
- for blacks will keep pace with those for whites, a pledge that
- could cost $20 million to $40 million over the next few years.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-