Four named plaintiffs represented a class of 2200 current and former salaried, African-American employees of Coca-Cola in this class action filed April 1999 in the Northern District of Georgia. The case involved race discrimination in promotions, compensation and evaluations. Among other things, the plaintiffs alleged a substantial difference in pay between African-American and white employees; a "glass ceiling" that kept African-Americans from advancing past entry-level management positions; "glass walls" that channeled African-Americans to management in areas like human resources and away from power centers such as marketing and finance; and senior management knowledge of these problems since 1995 and a failure to remedy them.
In early 2000, the Court ordered both sides into mediation. The parties reached agreement on a Settlement-In-Principle on June 14, 2000. A final Settlement Agreement, valued at $192.5 million and designed to ensure dramatic reform of Coca-Cola's employment practices, was officially approved by the Court on June 7, 2001.
Since the Settlement Agreement went into effect, the court-appointed task force chaired by Alexis Herman, former Secretary of Labor, has issued annual task force reports highlighting the progress the Coca-Cola company has made in complying with the Settlement Agreement. These task force reports are available as PDF documents by clicking on the links above.
