In what Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman heralded Wednesday as a "wake-up call" for employers, Texaco Inc. agreed to pay $3.1 million to 186 female managers who earned less than men doing similar work.
The agreement set a record for Labor Department "glass ceiling" investigations involving sexual discrimination, although it is smaller than some other recent landmark cases, including a $176-million settlement that White Plains, N.Y.-based Texaco reached in 1996 in an infamous racial discrimination lawsuit.
The Texaco investigation, which stemmed from a routine audit, signals the beginning of more intense examination of federal contractors' pay policies, Herman said.
"I believe there is a strong message here for all federal contractors," she said. "We do plan to vigorously step up our actions in this area."
The pay gap between men and women is a widespread and complex problem that affects more than the 186 women at Texaco, said Sheila Wellington, president of Catalyst, a New York research group that recently released a study showing that top female executives earn 68 cents for every dollar paid to their male colleagues.
In the national work force as a whole, women earned 76.7 cents for every dollar men made in the third quarter of 1998, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"One of the things that frequently gets overlooked in this whole wage-gap conversation is the fact that it's not just a wage gap for working women, it's a wage gap for working families," Wellington said. "This is about family income."
Separately, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed suit against Aames Financial Corp., alleging that the Los Angeles-based mortgage company paid female managers less than male managers. The lawsuit, filed Dec. 30 under the Equal Pay Act of 1963, seeks as much as two times back pay, plus damages, for affected managers.
Alice Cobb, executive vice president of human resources at Aames, said the company had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment other than to say, "We are committed to establishing a workplace free of discrimination." Aames employs 1,300 people.
In another EEOC action, the commission ruled that two Ford Motor Co. plants in Chicago are sexually hostile and offensive work environments. The commission previously granted right-to-sue letters to female employees there after an investigation found they were routinely sexually harassed.
