From Sacramento Bee, 12/4/02

Regional Transit Employees’ Bias Suit Settled for $2.5 million

By Melanie Payne
STAFF WRITER SACRAMENTO BEE

Sacramento 12/4/02—The Sacramento Regional Transit District agreed to make sweeping changes in the way it hires, promotes and trains employees as part of a legal settlement with seven women who had sued over gender discrimination.

The transit authority also agreed to pay $2.5 million—all but $50,000 of which is covered by insurance—to end the class-action lawsuit but did not admit guilt as part of the settlement.

In the court documents, the plaintiffs asserted that they were denied promotions and training opportunities that were given to men. They also alleged that Regional Transit made “direct appointments” of high-paying jobs without advertising new positions or openings and that most of these jobs went to men.

After more than 20 years in mass transit, plaintiff Debra Jones knew that men traditionally dominated the field of mass transit. But she described the situation at Regional Transit as untenable.

“Women had positions of responsibility, but no authority,” she said.

Ironically, Pilka Robinson, a woman, led the agency at the time the complaints surfaced. She was replaced in September by another woman, Beverly A. Scott.

Transit officials said they would provide the ratio of men to women in the Regional Transit work force but did not do so by press time Tuesday. Agency spokesman Mike Wiley called the settlement a prudent financial decision after four years of legal battles.

Of the $2.5 million, $300,000 will be divided among the seven plaintiffs, $1.3 million among 150 to 200 current or former female employees, and $900,000 among attorneys. Payments to the 150 to 200 former and current female employees will depend on the length of service, their position, and whether they signed declarations supporting the plaintiffs.

The settlement will pay only a few thousand dollars to most of the women, but the policy changes are the lasting benefit, said Sheila Thomas, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “Regional Transit has agreed to do things to make it a better place for women,” Thomas said.

The transit authority said it would amend human resources policies and procedures and consider requests to reclassify women in certain salaried positions. Wiley said the changes would be good for the organization.

“It’s not something that is a disadvantage to us to increase training opportunities, make information available to the employees and improve promotion procedures,” he said. “Those are benefits that are positives for all of our employees.”

Any disputes, including appeals on reclassifications, will be decided by a “special master,” retired Superior Court Judge Cecily Bond. She will also monitor whether the agency follows the terms of the consent decree.

The settlement, filed in court Nov. 22, required that both parties agree on the choice for special master and that the transit authority pay the salary. The U.S. District Court will consider final approval of the settlement on Feb. 23.

Jones, a former senior planning manager at Regional Transit, headed up the South Line extension of light rail for six years. When a project-manager position was created to move to the building phase, Jones said, she was told she wasn’t qualified.

Both positions required supervising a team of consultants and agency staff, she said. The only difference was that a man was paid $20,000 more than she had been to do the work, said Jones, now a project manager for a consulting group that manages transit projects nationwide.

After she and other women at Regional Transit shared their experiences, Jones said, they realized a pattern was emerging.

“We found out that we were all going through the same thing,” she said, applying for promotions and being denied, being told they didn’t have the education or experience, only to have men get the jobs.

The women tried to work within the agency to secure change, but “all the internal mechanisms were exhausted,” Jones said, and so they filed a lawsuit.

The women wanted the changes in hiring and promotion policies so much that they rejected an earlier settlement offer by Regional Transit, Jones said. They also switched attorneys, hiring The Impact Fund, a Berkeley-based foundation that supports civil-and human-rights litigation, and the Equal Rights Advocates, a nonprofit women’s law center based in San Francisco, to represent them.

Decisions were left to the complete discretion of whoever was hiring, and the plaintiffs believed that future applicants need the right to independent appeal to end discrimination, said Brad Seligman, the Impact Fund’s executive director.

Companies can change a culture and organization, but it takes time—and sometimes a leadership change, said Dan Biddle, who leads a Sacramento-based equal employment consulting firm that bears his name.